Public Health Magazine: Spring 1996, Vol.4, No.1
In The Field-- Pam Haller '96: Having Faith in School-Based Clinics

A desire to make quality health care available to the less-fortunate faithful led the Reverend Pam Haller to earn a degree at CSPH. Her plans for the future include a project to help adolescents deal with personal loss.

In nearly a decade of work in urban ministries, the Reverend Pam Haller noticed that health concerns were too often overshadowing her parishioners' spiritual pursuits.

From teenaged mothers seeking immunizations for their infants, to people with AIDS and adults struggling to care for aging parents, "it seemed like everything I came in contact with was related to health care," she says.

CFP is an offshoot of the Coalition for School-Based Primary Care, a membership organization dedicated to making school-based primary care clinics permanent resources for New York State's children. Founded in 1992, the Coalition has received funding from the New York Foundation and the Aaron Diamond Foundation, and last year it became affiliated with CSPH, sharing office space at the Center for Population and Family Health.

Because of limited funding, Haller works only part-time. So, rather than devoting precious hours to face-to-face meetings with clergy or individual groups, CFP has drafted a resolution calling upon "all ministers and churches ... to actively promote issues of child health through preaching and worship, education, mission and parish life; and encourage all congregations to adopt a school-based clinic in their area ..."

To date, 26 religious organizations have received the Child Health Resolution, including the 66,000 member Episcopal Diocese of Long Island, which adopted it unanimously last November. The process is akin to collecting signatures for a political campaign, Haller explains, and the show of support by so many potential voters should have a positive impact on state and local politicians. To that end, Haller, an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ, recently attended a "clergy lobby day" in Albany that included school health funding discussions.

"Working in urban churches tied together a lot of my personal commitments," Haller says of her transition from a childhood in Ohio to adult life in upper Manhattan. She hopes soon to extend these commitments to a project addressing the bereavement and grief encountered by adolescents who have experienced loss from violence, AIDS, and other urban ills. If funded, Haller plans to launch the project as a pilot program at CSPH's five comprehensive school-based clinics.

-CZ