She calls it an “amazing program that keeps students in school while their parents can stay at work,” even though the child may not be feeling well.

Jessica Barton is talking about the Rapides Community Health Center’s School-Based program that offers health centers in 35 schools across Rapides Parish, available to both students and teachers. In a seamless interface between education and healthcare, the centers provide down-the-hall service for sick visits, wellness visits and sports physicals.

Barton, who serves as Family Nurse Practitioner for this School-Based program, observes that children often deflect wellness questions from parents as they hurry to get to school in the morning, only to tell teachers of an earache or other illnesses. This could have meant a phone call to the parent who would have lost work time to pick up the child for a doctor’s visit.

But with Trinity’s trained staff in-house, professional diagnosis is available as well as dispensing of over-the-counter medication if needed (with prior parental approval) and even prescription of medications which the parents would pick up. “If they feel ill, it’s a quick trip to the clinic then back to the classroom and the parent doesn’t need to miss work. And yes, if a teacher needs help, we can provide that reducing the need for substitutes when there is already a shortage.”

Providing these services are nearly 100 employees, including 18 nurse practitioners, 35 nurses, 35 front desk associates as well as counselors and behavioral health specialists.

“We provide a safe and welcoming environment for students and staff. When we have children in our clinic, we get to know them. We share a unique relationship through their feedback.” Barton explains that the clinics provide medical education on two fronts. When prescriptions are written, the professionals verify and explain that medication with the parent before they pick it up. With students, they work to establish “health literacy” to improve the child’s understanding of the common medications to help put them in charge of their own health care at an early age.

This caring nurse practitioner hails from central Kansas and has been in Louisiana since 2006, making her home in Alexandria. She received her Master of Science degree in Nursing from ULL in 2016 and worked with a long term acute care hospital in Alexandria for 15 years. But her focus shifted from the elderly to the young when she and husband Bruce, an internal medical physician, began their family.

The elder, Carson (now 5), arrived just three weeks before COVID hit. Their second, Teddy, is 3.