Children’s Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2022 Community Benefits

Children’s Wisconsin School Health Nurses Provide Care and Support to Students

Children’s Wisconsin provides 11 Milwaukee Public Schools with full-time school nurses reflecting their commitment to support and advance total well-being for all kids. They aim to improve both health and academic outcomes by assessing the students’ needs first and using a collaborative approach to meet those needs. 

During the 2021-22 school year, the Children’s nurses found innovative ways to support the increased needs of the nearly 4,000 students they care for with social emotional support, mask wearing, social distancing and resuming childhood immunization schedules. Approximately one-third of the students Children’s school nurses care for have a chronic health condition and nearly half are living below the poverty level. Children’s school nurse program continues to expand upon the role to include enhanced case management and care coordination, advocacy, attendance monitoring and social-emotional well-being making the role of the school nurse an essential partner within the school to support the students, families and the community.

Prior to the pandemic, the Children’s nurse at Clarke Street Elementary was working with a student who had more than a dozen school nurse office visits for asthma symptoms and struggled with unstable housing. Utilizing a student-centered, collaborative care coordination approach, the student was referred to Children’s Community Health Asthma Management Program (CHAMP) and got connected to Children’s Specialty Care for treatment. With those connections and support, the student is doing well and has only had one school nurse visit for asthma symptoms this school year.