Nashville's Health Department Hopes To Assist Homeless Kids Before It's Too Late

I attended the second meeting with members of the Metro Health Department's peeps charged with providing mobile screening and vaccinations for children in the Nashville area.  Talk about a caring, compassionate and driven group of folks!

As you may recall from my earlier post, the goals were lofty:
1.  Find kids who were homeless - this in itself is a real challenge, given the perception on the street that where one batch of well-meaning officials go, another batch of not-so-well-meaning officials soon follows with the intent to snatch those kids for "child abuse" because they are homeless.  If you are a parent you can imagine the angst and fear this would cause you, regardless of whether you think just being homeless with children rises to the level of child abuse (and frankly, in most cases, it doesn't.  Additionally, most folks who are homeless don't take kindly to seeing kids mistreated in their camps or in areas frequented by other homeless folks).

2.  Provide treatment to children regardless of whether they have TennCare or not.  This is a sticky one, because if you are treating children on TennCare, the state does not allow the provider to then treat for free any kids who are not.  Crazy, I know, but the state is crazy at times.

3.  Enroll those kids without insurance into TennCare while providing that initial treatment.  If you've ever enrolled anyone into TennCare, you recognize instantly that trying to do it from a mobile health van is....well, next to impossible.

The star of today's meeting was Clifton Harris, MDHA's Homeless Services Coordinator, who listened intently to Donna's pitch and then provided their crew with an expansive, truly comprehensive approach.  While he agreed that they'd need to do plenty of street outreach, he also provided a number of other great avenues for finding the kids as well; avenues I never would have thought of, since I don't typically deal with children.

Clifton also suggested a concise writeup essentially constituting a cost-benefit analysis that Donna and crew will then present to the Health & Behavioral Health committee of the Homelessness Commission (Eric Cole chairs) on July 8th.

Eric (I'm SORRY Eric - I forgot your last name!) provided some great insight into the expedited Tenncare process he has set up with the state and offered to help do the same for this group.  There are still a number of very difficult issues to work through, such as having a valid ID and a face to face meeting with folks prior to being accepted into TennCare, but we're working on those problems now.

Ultimately, what we're hoping to do is request a small amount of money as a set aside so that those kids who show up without any insurance do not get turned away.  The health department can then charge a nominal fee ($20) to whoever has this pot of money in order to guarantee that they remain within the parameters of TennCare's service policies, yet are able to treat anyone who arrives at the mobile van seeking assistance. 

This will then ensure that not only will parents know their kids are going to receive vaccinations and health screenings valid for school entry, the kids will also be enrolled in TennCare so that any future visits to the mobile health van (or anywhere else, for that matter) will occur without interruption or hassles.  Furthermore, this will provide some good street cred to folks who are fearful of bringing their children to the van while providing word of mouth reference on the overall efficacy of the crew and services.

Meanwhile, as Donna performs the CBA, members of her crew will begin the legwork to local agencies and schools, getting the word out that children who are homeless will have access to this service.  I'm taking two wonderful ladies with me on Tuesday for a ride along and my goal is to hit the lunch at Ken and Carol's, then head into all the local camps and along Riverfront introducing them to everyone I know.  Future ride-alongs will occur as needed.

We've already got some flyers available and we'll begin posting them whereever possible in order to generate additional exposure.

Watch for a fairly significant piece in the next issue of the Contributor on this effort as well; that issue goes to press 7/11 and should be on the streets shortly thereafter.

The health department won't roll this out until Donna's comfortable that all the ducks are in a row; a wise move, considering the skepticism and  cynicism rampant in the homeless community about government service quality.  Longterm hope is that the mobile kid's van will work in tandem with the new mobile health van for homeless adults that is set to launch very soon.

A side note here; although we're still quite a way away from December, we've got a verbal commitment from Donna and crew to set up a table at the Project Homeless Connect event that will take place on December 2nd at Municipal Auditorium.

It is indeed refreshing to see these sorts of things happening for Nashville's homeless population, especially the kids out there.  Metro schools are stating something like 1700+ kids in the Metro area who are homeless.  It's just so critically important that we stop this before it becomes a generational cycle; Donna Sumners recognizes this and she's trying to do something about it.  How awesome is that?!?