Crozer-Keystone Health System’s Wellness Center is celebrating its 10th anniversary during the 2005-2006 school year. As a health center for community children and teenagers, the Wellness Center has successfully helped to better the health and attitudes of local children and teenagers over the past decade.
Created through a partnership between Crozer-Chester Medical Center and the Chester-Upland School District, the center provides medical services for the youth of the community and addresses overall health and wellness through youth development programs.
Medical Services
The Wellness Center is the first and only school-based health care clinic in Delaware County. The center is open all year-round, even during summer vacation.
Although the center is located in Smedley Middle School, it is a medical suite open to children and adolescents in nearby communities. Children and adolescents come to the center for many reasons. Some come for routine care, such as physical exams, vaccinations, health care education, asthma maintenance care and group counseling. The center also provides sick care to children and teenagers who have immediate health concerns.
The Wellness Center’s medical services are provided for children and teenagers ranging from ages 5 to 21. Regardless of where children and teenagers live and go to school, they can come to the center for health services as well as to participate in youth programs.
“We are most grateful for the support the Crozer-Keystone Health System continues to provide for the Wellness Center,” says Rima Himelstein, M.D., medical director of the Wellness Center and director of Adolescent Medicine at Crozer-Chester Medical Center. “Our goal has always been to keep students in good health while training them to become role models for their peers.”
Youth Development Programs
The Wellness Center also provides leadership for several community health initiatives out of its office at Community Hospital in Chester.
The largest of these initiatives is the Chester Youth Collaborative, which works to strengthen and support out-of-school youth programs. The program was created by a $1,145,100 grant awarded by the William Penn Foundation to implement a neighborhood-based youth development system.
In addition to the grant, the center was also presented with an Achievement Award from the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania (HAP) for its youth leadership programs in 2005.
The Wellness Center also offers health promotion and youth leadership programs to students in grades 6-12 in the Chester Upland School District, both in-class and after-school. The programs focus on preparing students to handle the challenges of adolescence, such as peer pressure, in a positive way.
“We’re very proud of the continued success of the center, says Kate Blackburn, director of the Youth Development Programs for the Wellness Center.” “Over the past 10 years, we have been able to expand medical services to a comprehensive program that addresses the needs of local adolescents.”
For more information about the Wellness Center based at Smedley Middle School, call (610) 490-1755.
For more information about the Youth Development Programs based at Community Hospital, call (610) 497-7422.