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Health Services
Established through the receipt of grant funding in 1995 from Maternal and Child Health Bureau Healthy Tomorrow's Partnership for Children Program, TLC originated as a program that has used a collaborative model to provide health care to pregnant and parenting teens and their children. TLC was originally conceived by and has been a shared effort of the University of Minnesota-Duluth School of Medicine, the Duluth, Minnesota School District #709, and the St. Louis County Department of Health. Services are available to all pregnant and parenting teens and their children in the Duluth School District. The TLC Health Services is located at Duluth Central High School as a companion service to Habitat Infant/Toddler Center where, in the course of a school year, there are more than 100 students and children eligible for services.
TLC added social services in 1997. The goal of the social work services staff at TLC is to address the physical, mental, and emotional health and social welfare needs and improve clients' current and future quality of life. Social work services complement the physical health care goal of TLC to attain its desired outcomes, including access to quality health care, pregnancy prevention, graduation from high school, reduction of alcohol and substance use, violence prevention, and progress toward attainment of self-efficacy.
The goals of TLC Health Services are:
- Provide easy access to health care.
- Maintain wellness, so students can be more successful in school.
- Help student parents learn to use the health care system appropriately for themselves and their children.
- Serve as an extension of the patient's primary physician in diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of illness.
Services available include:
- Health education may include information on nutrition, exercise, men's and women's health issues, smoking cessation, AIDS/STD prevention, contraceptive education, disease and accident prevention, and parenting skills.
- For student parents, provide routine health visits such as hepatitis B and influenza immunizations, sports and job physical and annual GYN exams. For the students' children, track and coordinate well-child visits and immunizations with the patient's primary physician.
- Evaluation and treatment of minor and acute illnesses in adolescent parents and in their infant and toddler children.
- Available laboratory services include routine blood test, throat cultures, urine tests, and pregnancy tests.
- Personal counseling on topics such as self-esteem, family and relationship issues, abuse and neglect, depression, and suicide prevention.
- Social services including advocacy, mediation, and assistance when needed regarding medical coverage, finances, housing, etc.
- Referral services as needed, including nutrition counseling, eating disorder assessment, chemical abuse assessment, depression, WIC services, and establishing a primary physician.
Enrollment in the Health Services shows:
- School attendance increased more than 30% compared to prior to the establishment of Health Services
- GPAs improved 29%
- Graduation was more than twice the national average
- Emergency room and urgent care visits were significantly reduced
- The rate of unwanted follow-up pregnancies is less than one-half the rate it was prior to the establishment of Health Services