California School-Based Health Alliance

This webinar introduces school-based health and wellness centers, which bring medical, mental health, dental, and wellness services directly to school campuses. With over 400 centers statewide, they vary from calming wellness spaces to comprehensive clinics and mobile units, all built through strong  school-community partnerships. The model improves access to care, reduces absenteeism, increases use of mental health services, and strengthens school connectedness - supporting both student health and academic success.

This webinar introduces the Student Health Index (SHI), a statewide tool that uses 14 health, socioeconomic, and school indicators to identify where school-based health and wellness centers are most needed. The dashboard helps users filter region, school type, and existing centers to guide advocacy and planning. Findings show the highest-need schools serve low-income students of color, revealing significant unmet needs and opportunities to expand access to care across California.

This webinar focuses on planning effective school-based health and wellness centers through needs and assessments, asset mapping, and strategic partnerships. It highlights tools such as community health assessments, the California Healthy Kids Survey, the Student Health Index, KidsData, and clinic/treatment locators to identify student needs and existing resources. The session also introduces resource mapping steps - preparing, identifying resources, and sustaining/evaluating the process - and points to CSHA's toolkits and best practice guides to support schools in building or expanding health services.

This webinar explores the role of stakeholder collaboration in planning and implementing school-based health and wellness centers. It highlights the importance of engaging students, families, school staff, nurses, administrators, health providers, and piblic health officials in inclusive decision-making. Key considerations include building trust, generating community support, centering student needs, and developing champions to sustain services. The session also reviews CSHA's implementation checklist, best practices, and planning tools, with examples such as Los Angeles Unified School District's Wellness Coordinating Councils that ensure strong integration and ongoing collaboration.