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Georgetown medical-legal partners urge restoration of school-based health center funding
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Summary
Georgetown Law's Health Justice Alliance and MedStar partners asked the Council to restore funding for seven school-based health centers and to preserve two full-service clinics at Anacostia and Roosevelt High Schools, saying $600,000 could restore those two centers.
Georgetown Law's Health Justice Alliance told the Committee on Health that proposed FY26 reductions to DC Health school-based health center grants would jeopardize full-service pediatric care and associated legal services in Anacostia and Roosevelt High Schools.
Marta Barrison, deputy director of the Health Justice Alliance Law Clinic at Georgetown, described the partnership between MedStar Georgetown School-Based Health Centers and the law clinic, which screens students for health-harming legal needs such as housing conditions and benefits eligibility. She gave a concrete example: a student referred through the clinic regained electricity and had housing conditions remediated after legal action, which led to improved school attendance and asthma control.
Barrison said restoring funding for the two high-school clinics would require about $600,000 and argued that the clinics' integrated medical and legal services produce longer-term savings by averting emergency visits and stabilizing families.
A clinic representative who spoke about patient-centered services described mental health, immunizations and basic primary care delivered on campus and urged the Council to consider the preventive and unmeasured benefits school-based care produces.
Ending: The Health Justice Alliance asked the Committee to restore the funding and to view the school-based model as a prevention strategy that lowers future health and education costs.
