BOSTON ASTHMA INITIATIVE
Concerned about the toll asthma was taking in their children's lives, in 1997, residents of the Boston neighborhood of Jamaica Plain identified asthma as the number one health issue requiring attention. As a result, Brigham and Women's Hospital, along with Children's and Faulkner Hospital, worked with community residents to create the Boston Asthma Initiative, a unique holistic and collaborative approach to combat asthma.
Community-driven since its conception, the Initiative was developed and is being implemented as a collaboration between residents, community organizations, hospitals, community health centers, the city's public health commission, and local public schools. The Initiative has an Advisory Board that oversees the vision and mission.
The Initiative uses an innovative comprehensive approach to asthma management by involving the various people that play a role in a child's well-being and identifying and addressing environmental issues in the different locations that affect a child's life. To engage children in their own well-being, the Initiative provides asthma education to asthmatic children in the Jamaica Plain public schools. It then reaches out to the asthmatic children's parents or guardians and visits families in their homes to provide asthma education and to conduct an environmental assessment of their home. The Initiative also works with parents, teachers, and school administrators to reduce environmental exposures in the schools through the establishment of school environmental committees that identify priority environmental issues in their school and work to address these issues. The Initiative also collaborates with health care providers to review protocols, medicines, and asthma action plans for school and home settings. Finally, the Initiative raises awareness of the disease through the coordination of community forums and other outreach activities.
BWH COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS
Brookside Community Health Center
Southern Jamaica Plain Community Health Center
PARTNERSHIP WITH THE MAURICE J. TOBIN SCHOOL
For more than a decade, Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Maurice J. Tobin School in Mission Hill have been working in close partnership. This unusual relationship between an academic medical center and an urban public elementary and middle school began in response to the school principal's request for specific assistance from the hospital, including, for example, improvements to the physical plant and nutrition education for students. Today, strong connections between the two organizations have influenced the environments of both and are impacting the learning of Tobin students.
The overall goal of the partnership is to support the academic mission of the school by increasing parent, family, community, and hospital involvement in students' learning. Since individuals with higher educational status also have improved health status, this goal is linked to the hospital's mission of improving the health status of the community. Family involvement has been demonstrated as a critical element in student achievement, so the joint programming aims to reach out to families and assist them in becoming active participants in their children's education. Other elements of the program are designed to engage hospital employees in students' education. The partnership's focus is on the Tobin Brigham Family Support Center as well as health career and health education activities.
The Tobin-Brigham Family Support Center is staffed by three "Parenting Partners." The Parenting Partners design and implement initiatives to involve families in their children's education and build relationships between students and adults. The school and hospital share oversight of the program,with the hospital taking responsibility, through the Office for Women, Family and Community Programs, for gathering data to inform program development, conducting program evaluation, and fundraising.
Brigham and Women's Hospital/Tobin School Volunteer Reading Program
Brigham Book Buddies
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