Bangor approves COVID-19 reduction funding for center faculty well being clinics
Well being clinics will likely be added to 2 Bangor center faculties utilizing $500,000 in federal pandemic reduction funding from town.
On Monday, Bangor metropolis councilors unanimously permitted giving $500,000 of town’s remaining $13.3 million in pandemic reduction funding to the Bangor Faculty Division to create Penobscot Group Well being Care clinics for college kids at two center faculties.
The $500,000 for the varsity division was considered one of 4 awards given to native organizations, making up the most recent wave of federal funding town has been working to present out over the previous few months. Initially, Bangor obtained greater than $20 million from the American Rescue Plan Act, however the metropolis has about $11.6 million left to present, and nonetheless extra functions for funding to think about within the coming weeks.
The 2 center faculty clinics, which Penobscot Group Well being Care will oversee and workers, will likely be an growth of the in-school clinic in Bangor Excessive Faculty, which opened in February 2022 and offers psychological well being appointments to about 50 college students per week.
The highschool clinic offered one other outlet for college kids to obtain psychological and bodily well being care at a time when roughly 50 Bangor college students sat on waitlists for care that could possibly be weeks or months-long, Superintendent James Tager mentioned.
Apart from psychological well being counseling, the highschool clinic can administer immunizations, take a look at for frequent sicknesses like strep throat and ear infections and full sports activities physicals college students must take part in some extracurricular actions.
If two center faculties might be renovated to carry a well being clinic and PCHC can provide staffing, Debbie Laurie, Bangor metropolis supervisor, mentioned the clinics might open within the fall of 2024.
Councilors additionally permitted giving $1 million to Habitat for Humanity Larger Bangor to assist the group develop a minimum of six reasonably priced single-family houses, so long as these houses are in Bangor. The cash will likely be used to amass land for the houses, cowl development prices, and rent a challenge supervisor to supervise the event, in response to the appliance.
The Maine Multicultural Middle additionally obtained $70,700 to fund a full time program supervisor for one yr who will recruit, prepare and handle volunteers and function a case supervisor. That worker and the volunteers they create aboard will assist guarantee immigrants safe transitional housing and companies that assist them settle within the Bangor space.
Lastly, councilors awarded $100,000 to the Christine B Basis to assist the location design and planning section of a dietary well being facility the inspiration is trying to construct. The power can be Maine’s first medical dietary well being facility and goals to deal with social determinants of well being, comparable to psychological well being and housing, by entry to prescribed wholesome meals and oncology dietician counseling throughout Maine, in response to the group’s software.
