For the past two years, Hopkins students have made an impact on the lives of over 3,000 Baltimore residents as volunteers for Project HEALTH.
Founded in 1996 in the Boston Medical Center Pediatrics Department, Project HEALTH currently spans five cities with four specific clinics in Baltimore. The program works to bring a total package of services, including medical attention and food supplies to needy families.
Hopkins campus coordinator Jemma Alarcon described the program as "fighting against poverty and poor health through public health interventions." The Public Health Department works as an intermediary between families in need and agencies that provide services; College students serve as the connecting factory by manning resource desks in each clinic.
From October 2006 to June this summer, the Harriet Lane resource desk alone has served over 591 individual patients. The four clinics have helped about 1,400 of families in total the past two years.
"When we help someone with food stamps, we're helping their families as well ... we've seen a total number of 3,000 lives touched," Mark Morino, the Baltimore site director, said.
Among the numerous accounts, Morino described one of the first cases in October of 2006. A woman came to the Harriet Lane Clinic, initially passing the resource desk as she went to see her pediatrician. She did not feel like talking about her situation at the time.
Her pediatrician walked her to the resource table on her way out, encouraging her to take advantage of the students' aid.
"When she sat down she got really emotional and started crying after telling her story about her family situation and her housing situation," Morino said.
She had recently lost her job and felt overwhelmed not knowing what to do. The student volunteer sat with her and talked her through the situation.
Morino said they first started to address the food situation.
Since then Morino said that the client has gotten access to food, found an affordable apartment in Baltimore and took a job-training course. She is now actively applying for a job with her new computer skills, according to Morino.
Furthermore the staff at Harriet Lane still gets updates on a weekly basis; When the client graduated from her job training, the student she worked with was invited to attend the ceremony.
Barry Solomon, the director of the Harriet Lane Clinic confirmed the great difference that the addition of the resource desk has made over the past two years. "In the past we had many terrific programs and great social workers but we couldn't stay on top of all the needs and agencies demanded by clients ... Now with the resource desk the students can connect patients to job-training programs or child services which they know are up-to-date and function well," Solomon said.
At the Harriet Lane Clinic there are two volunteers at the resource desk per shift every two hours. "Basically all the time a clinic is open we have volunteers ready," she said.
Explaining the basics, Alarcon said the client would go to the clinic, meet with the doctor and be treated. Then the student volunteers from the resource desk would take over. They ask questions that cover social issues ranging from rudimentary food needs to employment.
"If any of those needs are not being covered, the volunteers provide clients with resources," Jemma said.
While families come to the clinics for different medical reasons such as acute disease treatment, many psycho-social issues come up due to the interplay between social and health problems, according to Solomon.
The clinics have incorporated surveys making a general psycho-social screening part of the medical routine. The survey consists of five basic needs and serves as a prompt for the provider.
"Each family fills out the family need survey and the health provider can then bring the family to the health resource desk," Solomon said.
Beyond just connecting families to resources, both Solomon and Alarcon note that the student volunteers were really committed to following up with those families, actions "harder for the pediatricians and health providers" to carry out.
Echoing Morino in his account of the communication that still continues between the woman who first came in contact with the resource desk in October two years ago, Alarcon commented that volunteers would call the client and follow up to make sure they acquired needed resources.
For example, language barriers in filling out a food stamp application are taken care of when the volunteer would call people in charge or ask the client to return and receive help with translations.
"It's terrific when students contact the pediatrician and let the clinic know that a family made it to the food pantry or is now on the waiting list for housing," Solomon said.
Because the 70 percent of the people who use the resource desk's services are referred by their health providers, providers and the doctors are kept in the loop concerning the resource desk's achievements, which encourages more of their clients to seek out the resource desk, according to Solomon.
While Hopkins students have been active at the Harriet Lane Clinic, a Hopkins Medical pediatrics facility specifically for "eastern Baltimore families in the low income bracket," explained Nicole Licato, the other campus coordinator for Project HEALTH, three other clinics are also involved in the Baltimore area.
The Eastern Clinic is also a pediatrics center but specializes in aiding the Latino population. The Druid Hill Park Medical Clinic is a Loyola site health clinic for substance abuse specifically aiding homeless men. The fourth clinic is the St. Agnes Clinic, which is a general inner-city clinic.
Through Project HEALTH countless families have been helped, but long-term problems ensure that the work is far from over. According to Morino, the two largest problems plaguing Baltimore citizens are the housing shortage and the lack of employment opportunities.
Baltimore is experiencing a lack of housing, and those who on the waiting list can have up to a 10-year wait on a "closed waiting list," according to Morino.
Morino confirmed that longer intervention focused on the fact that people possibly needed more skills or needed to go back to school. Alarcon added that delivering medication to the sick is not enough.
The factors negatively affecting people's lives, resulting in some sickness, are issues that Project HEALTH is still working on answering.
