DC Assembly on School Health Care

Welcome to the DC Assembly on School Health Care

The DC Assembly on School Health Care (DC Assembly) is a coalition of organizations and individuals committed to providing quality and accessible health care for children and adolescents in the District of Columbia. The DC Assembly was founded to provide coordinated efforts to increase the availability of health care for at-risk and medically underserved populations through partnerships involving schools and health care providers.

May 18, 2009: Meeting between DC DMH and Ms. Sara Netanyahu
At the request of Mrs. Netanyahu, the DC Department of Mental Health (DMH) met with Ms. Sara Netanyahu on Monday, May 18th to discuss children’s mental health with an emphasis on school mental health. Ms. Netanyahu is a practicing child psychologist working in the schools in Israel at the Jerusalem Municipality Psychological Service. This was a working meeting to discuss the children’s mental health programs, including school mental health that DMH is providing in the District as well as what practices are being provided in Israel. In attendance, was one of the DCASHC's board members, Ms. Barbara Parks, who also works at DMH.

Pictured above left: Ms. Netanyahu and Barbara Parks; Pictured right: DMH board with Ms. Netanyahu

Parents want their children to have access to qualified medical professionals in their school to speak with.¹
· 76% of parents agreed that if we are serious about preventing unintended pregnancies and diseases like HIV, birth control and condoms must be widely available and accessible in DC schools.
· The large majority of parents (87%) said that if their child did not come to them first, they would want their children to have a full range of health care services – including treatment for illnesses such as strep throat and asthma – from medical professionals in their schools.

¹ DC Healthy Youth Coalition and Metro TeenAIDS teamed up with Zogby International to conduct telephone interviews with a sample of 652 parents. The poll has a +/-3.9% margin of error.