T
H
E
L
O
G
Darrington Youths are WELL AWARE! The Darrington Clinic and the Darrington Prevention Intervention Community Coalition succeeded in receiving a grant from the State to address alcohol and drug prevention. The goal is to address the needs and difficulties that Darrington teens have in accessing health care, information, and services. Our approach has been three pronged. First, we’ve started a Teen Clinic! Shannon Thom ARNP, the Clinic’s recently hired primary care provider has been meeting with interested Middle and High School students at the high school (see below). Next, both Shannon and Dr. Schillhammer come to the schools to provide lectures on important physical and health related topics. Finally we hope to develop a personal, local social media website where students could blog anonymously to communicate with our local health care professionals. They would be linked and referred directly to reliable health care resources for help and information. We hope Well Aware will help our kids make wise life choices and get advice and answers from someone they know and trust. The WellAware Clinic outreach has been available to Darrington students on Thursday afternoons since April and will remain available through the summer at the Darrington Family Resource Center. Family nurse practitioner Shannon Thom provides FREE confidential health education on a variety of topics—healthy eating, exercise, substance abuse prevention, smoking, mental health, etc. An initial clinic appointment is available to students who need more in-depth assessment or treatment, courtesy of the funding provided by the grant and the Darrington Clinic Hospital Guild. Students have been primarily referred by school staff so far, but are welcome to drop in. Parents are also welcome to refer students. We are looking forward to building connections between the school, the community, and the clinic. Students with accurate information are better equipped to make healthy decisions throughout their lives. As a measure of our success in this process the grant requires that we use a survey tool to assess how we may have changed our kids’ awareness and influence behaviors. Parents of next years H.S. freshman and seniors may receive a RAAPS survey to be filled out confidentially by the student and returned anonymously. We hope you will understand the value in knowing more about their behaviors and where they may go for help. Please allow their private participation in the surveys so we can best assess teen problems and what tools we can use to help in modeling their future. Thank You Gary Schillhammer MD
Family and Student Access Be sure to check out Family Access on the Darrington School District Website: http://www.dsd.k12.wa.us/. On the family access website you can access your student’s school information. Some of the information available includes grades, assignments, attendance, lunch balances, demographic information, and schedules. Middle and high school families –you may now request a weekly progress report be emailed to you. This option is available in your family access. Please call Val Smith at the high school for your login and password information. or for help with accessing this feature.
Seniors toss their caps at graduation.!
P A G E
9