Young & Healthy
Mary Donnelly-Crocker, Executive Director
325 S. Oak Knoll Ave.
Pasadena, Calif. 91101
(626) 795-5166
(626) 795-8154
E-Mail: younghealthy@mindspring.com
World Wide Web: www.mindspring.com/~younghealthy/

This exciting initiative does a lot with a little. It’s simple, pragmatic and appears to be highly replicable, and in fact is already beginning to take root in the form of similar initiatives throughout the Los Angeles metropolitan area. After being featured on ABC News, its officials received nearly 100 inquiries from around the nation, and within the time and energy constraints of a very small, very busy nonprofit, they’re doing all they can to promote replication by mailing out basic information for free and additional background papers for a nominal fee.

The basic principle, as with so many of the very best ideas in the poverty-fighting arena, is so simple and elegant that, once you’ve heard it, you wonder why no one thought of it before: It’s essentially an effort to mobilize voluntarism by physicians, dentists and other health professionals who are willing to provide pro bono service to low-income patients, particularly young people, provided that the effort can be made easy and “hassle-free.”

Young & Healthy makes the process simple by keeping thorough, computerized records for more than 250 participants, physicians and others who agree to provide a certain number of free visits per year, in their own offices.

When a youngster reports to his or her school nurse with an illness or injury that requires medical attention, the nurse -- who formerly had no alternative except to advise the child go to a hospital emergency room -- can now simply call Young & Healthy, where staff simply query the computer to identify a doctor who’s willing and able to deal with the specific ailment and who hasn’t been over-burdened with more requests than his original commitment allowed. The youngster is given a regular office appointment, and there’s never a charge.

"It is the right of every child to have access to quality health care," notes Young & Healthy’s online brochure; “But it is easier said than done. At least one-third of Pasadena's 22,000 public school children have no health insurance. And those who are insured under Medi-Cal, the California Medicaid program, have grave problems getting care because fee cuts have discouraged enrollment of physicians. So Pasadena has created its own system, meeting the health care needs of uninsured public school students with services of more than 200 health care professionals, volunteers of Young & Healthy.”

Young & Healthy grew out of a community coalition convened by the Office for Creative Connections outreach program of All Saints Episcopal Church, which sponsored a survey of children’s health and found a huge uninsured minority among the city’s low-income families. Under the lead of the Office for Creative Connections’ Lorna Miller and Dr. Don Thomas, an emergency-room physician, the coalition recruited doctors, dentists, mental health workers, hospitals and pharmacists. Community volunteers were recruited to help school nurses, drive patients to their appointments, help the professionals, and teach dental care to children.

The program began late in 1990, and by September 1993 had reached all 32 schools in the three suburban cities of the Pasadena Unified School District. In its first year, the organization facilitated just 227 appointments; growth was slow, requiring a difficult period of confidence-building and persuading poor families -- largely by example and word of mouth -- that the program wasn’t a “scam” and that there really would be no fees; overcoming political and turf barriers with also took time and effort, as did the recruitment process among physicians.

But services doubled or tripled every year, and by last school year, Young & Healthy provided 5,300 “units of service” to some 1,200 individuals through some 250 health-care providers. It got all this done with a staff of just five full time and two part time and a $514,000 budget, operating out of a small office space in a cavernous, otherwise vacant old school building.

Doctors and dentists volunteer as they are able, explains the organization’s Website, summarizing the program in overview. Some see one child a month, treating only emergencies. Others take on long-term treatment. Two hospital emergency rooms give service without charge. Laboratories and pharmacies contribute. Mental health workers emphasize prevention, in cooperation with classroom teachers, but also provide longer courses of treatment as required.

The complex network of providers is coordinated from a central office provided by the Board of Education. A coordinator makes referrals, helped by an assistant. A case manager takes over planning follow-up for those requiring continuing care. And a nurse, provided by the schools, is available to make home calls and meet emergencies at schools where there is no nurse.

Listed under, “Our Beliefs,” Young & Healthy’s core principles would work in any community: “We believe it is the right of every child to have access to quality health care. We believe that if enough people volunteer their expertise and services, the community can make a substantial difference in the lives of its children. We believe that our mission can best be accomplished through collaboration with other community institutions. We believe that it is our responsibility to advocate for children's health care needs.”

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

Browse his book, Reinvesting In America, at Amazon.com.

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