Preventive Services

Prevention and health promotion are important aspects of how SBHCs address the full spectrum health needs of children, adolescents and their families. Below are resources and tools that can be used in addressing the comprehensive mental, physical, and emotional needs of young people. Whether you are a SBHC health or mental health provider, these tools will be helpful in improving and maintaining the health of the students in your SBHC.

Bright Futures: is a national health promotion and disease prevention initiative that addresses children's health needs in the context of family and community. In addition to use in pediatric practice, many SBHCs implement Bright Futures principles, guidelines and tools to strengthen the connections between state and local programs, pediatric primary care, families, and local communities.

• Bright Futures Materials: are designed to be useful to a wide range of audiences from health care professionals and those who provide health care for children, to parents and others in the community who participate in youth-oriented activities such as coaches, educators, child care workers and others.
• Bright Futures Family Resources: are available on a wide range of mental, physical, and emotional health issues for children from the prenatal months through age 21. Health professionals have found that providing Bright Futures materials promotes positive interaction with the families whose children are in their care.
• Bright Futures Clinical Practice: provides health supervision care to infants, children and adolescents, clinics and practices will want to access current information about health supervision content and practice management.

Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Testing Program: Medicaid’s child health component, known as the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment (EPSDT) program, has been shaped to fit the standards of pediatric care and to meet the special physical, emotional, and developmental needs of low-income children. Since one in three U.S. children under age six is eligible for Medicaid, EPSDT offers a very important way to ensure that young children receive appropriate health, mental health, and developmental services.

• Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic, and Treatment (EPSDT) Services in Medicaid Knowledge Path: Compiled by the Maternal and Child Health Library at Georgetown University, a selection of current, high-quality resources about providing and strengthening EPSDT services. The path includes guidelines for the frequency, timing, and content of health-promotion and disease-prevention services for infants, children, and adolescents. Separate sections present resources for professionals (health professionals, program administrators, policymakers, and researchers) and for families.

Guidelines For Adolescent Preventive Services (GAPS): The AMA's Guidelines for Adolescent Preventive Services is a comprehensive set of recommendations that provides a framework for the organization and content of preventive health services. The GAPS recommendations were designed to be delivered ideally as a preventive services package during a series of annual health visits between the ages of 11-21.

The Child Health and Illness Profile (CHIP): Developed by a developed by a team of researchers and clinicians at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, CHIP is a family of validated, self-administered questionnaires to describe the health and well-being of youth ages 6-17. It takes 15 minutes to complete the child edition; 25 minutes for the adolescent edition.

Rapid Assessment for Adolescent Preventive Services (RAAPS): RAAPS is a 21 question risk survey for adolescents aged 11-21. The vision for the implementation of RAAPS is for all professionals providing services to adolescents, to screen and provide counseling for risk behaviors which contribute to the leading causes of adolescent morbidity and mortality. The RAAPS makes it easier for professionals to address and document the most common adolescent health risk behaviors in a single visit.