Anna Gabriella Casalme School­Based Health Alliance Youth Advisory Council Application Why are you applying to be on the Youth Advisory Council? My reasons for applying to be on the Youth Advisory Council relate to my aspirations and interests, but first and foremost, they are rooted in my personal experiences. I was raised by immigrant parents in a low­income neighborhood in East Los Angeles. Before my family moved to the Inland Empire, I attended a primary school that did not have a school­based health center and I did not know about school­based health centers until a couple years ago.. Due to a severe childhood trauma, I was in desperate need of behavioral health services, but I did not receive these services until late in my college education and I felt the ramifications of this throughout my schooling. This was by no means due to a lack of caring on the part of my parents, teachers or other adults invested in my wellbeing. Rather, I see that there were and still are seemingly endless hurdles in place for families like mine seeking mental and behavioral health services for a child: stigma, inconvenience, low literacy, financial barriers, a complex healthcare system among others. Children have the right to health equity and that it is our responsibility as a society to minimize disparities in healthcare access, quality and outcomes as much as we possibly can. I believe that school is a compelling setting to accomplish this and that schools, which bear much of the burden in reducing disparities of all sorts, need support. I want to be on the Youth Advisory Council because I am an advocate for child and adolescent health. A recent college graduate, I am constantly searching for opportunities to learn, grow, find community and ultimately contribute in this field and I believe that a term with the SBHA Youth Advisory Council is such an opportunity. How did you hear about this position and how familiar are you with the work of School­Based Health Alliance? While I was an undergraduate, I attended the first Health Services in Schools Conference hosted by the Stanford School of Medicine. At the time, I was not familiar with the idea of school health on the school­based health center even though my studies were in Human Biology and Education. I thought I was fairly alone at Stanford in my gravitation towards all things in the intersection of education and healthcare, in my view of the school as a natural and powerful promoter of child and adolescent health. Clearly, I was wrong. During the conference and the days immediately following it, I absorbed the work of local organizations, such as the Center for Healthy Schools and Communities in Alameda County, and national ones, the School­Based Health Alliance. Finally, the work that I wanted to commit myself to and felt so strongly about had a name, history and community. I heard about the position with the Youth Advisory Council because I was searching for opportunities in the school­based health field open to a recent graduate seeking to get involved and start a career. What experience do you have with school­based health centers? In my current position at AltaMed Health Services, I am working on a project funded by the CDC REACH (Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health) grant. We develop PSE (policy, systemic, environmental) changes in partnering grocers, restaurants, schools, nonprofits and clinics in East LA with the goal of promoting healthy behavior changes and chronic disease prevention among community members. I work primarily with the school partners. We assist schools specifically in the development of their wellness policy, wellness council, and school health goals as well as the implementation of programming to meet those goals given their resources. Some of our school partners partners such as the Ellen Ochoa Learning Center already provide healthcare services and we take these school­based health centers into account when developing a school­specific action plan. What extra­curricular activities (school, work, religious institutions, etc.) are you involved in and what leadership role(s) have you experienced in these activities? While I was an undergraduate in college, I was involved in activities related to health and education (or I made my role related to health and education): alpha Kappa Delta Phi (Asian interest sorority), Stanford Center for Policy, Outcomes and Prevention, Asian Americans for Community Involvement, and the Stanford Graduate School of Education. In alpha Kappa Delta Phi, I was the Multicultural Greek Council Representative and the Fundraising Chair. I represented my sorority by leading workshops in the education and awareness events hosted by the greater women’s community, Asian Pacific Islander and multicultural Greek community at Stanford. At the Stanford Center for Policy, Research and Outcomes, I was a Pediatrics Research Assistant. I recruited participants for a research study on the efficacy of pediatric liquid medication labels and coded qualitative physician interviews to inform the development of a computer application to improve complex care coordination for pediatric patients. At Asian Americans for Community Involvement (AACI), a community health center serving the South Bay area, I created culturally competent and research­based content for the 3Waves community newspaper and for outreach presentations on substance abuse targeted towards adolescents and their parents. I presented these at the clinic and a local high school. Lastly, I was in the undergraduate honors program of the Stanford Graduate School of Education. I designed and implemented a research project on the use of children’s literature to facilitate 5th grade classroom discussions on sensitive but relevant topics such as disability, appearance­related bullying and mental health. This work evolved into a summer fellowship with Changing Faces UK to develop a comprehensive teaching resource on Wonder by RJ Palacio. What are the greatest health care issues facing young people today, and how could a group like the School­Based Health Alliance Youth Advisory Council work to address these issues? The greatest healthcare issues facing young people in the United States today are related to access and prevention. Today, one in three children are overweight or obese. Related health complications include chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease, which claim more lives than infectious disease. Furthermore, obesity disproportionately affects immigrant families, minorities and low­income populations. The obesity epidemic is complex, but just a few factors that contribute to these disparities relate to access: ​
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to community programming and spaces dedicated to nutrition and physical activity, preventive and comprehensive care, culturally sensitive health education, and quality doctors who see patients as people with lives beyond the exam room. Critical issues adolescents in particular are sexual and reproductive health as well as mental and behavioral health. In short, I believe that solving these issues in part requires us to restructure the environments young people spend most of their time in (school, clinics, communities) so that they make being healthy easier. A group like the School­Based Health Alliance Youth Advisory Council can work to address these issues in many ways. First, members of the council can empower other young people to take ownership of their health and their environments. This can mean organizing a group of students to demand healthier snack options in the vending machines on campus. It can mean supporting their own school­based health center by promoting its services amongst their peers. Second, members can share their perspectives on youth and school­based health with professionals in the school­based health field. Their insights are crucial to ensuring the success of programs and campaigns targeted towards them. What are your other commitments that will be balanced with your commitment to the Council (including, but not limited to: work and volunteerism)? I am currently serving a ten­month term with Community HealthCorps, an AmeriCorps program that focuses on promoting health and healthcare access for underserved communities. I serve 40 hours per week at my program site and I am fulfilling the physics prerequisite for medical school admissions, which is 6 hours per week. Are you available to participate in the National School­Based Health Care Convention in Arlington, VA, June 25­29, 2016 (expenses covered by School­Based Health Alliance)? Yes