Background
The Suitcase Clinic currently operates two clinical sites with multiple services at each site including medical, optometry, chiropractic, and others. Currently, the Suitcase Clinic is an entirely volunteer-run organization with extensive support from UC Berkeley staff from various departments and from Suitcase Clinic “alumni.” Participants in the Suitcase Clinic have been meeting and working with Sally Hindman from the Chaplaincy to the Homeless for the past several months in an effort to involve UC Berkeley students in working with homeless and runaway youth. In addition, the Chaplaincy and the Suitcase Clinic hope to operate at least a once weekly clinical project at the Chaplaincy’s future youth shelter and drop-in.
The collaboration stems from a desire to establish youth-focused health care services for a population reluctant to receive such services in traditional settings. In addition, the Suitcase Clinic and the Chaplaincy to the Homeless want to involve the university community, especially its students, in actively working with and engaging themselves with the problems of homeless youth.
LifeLong Medical Care has also expressed an interest in creating youth-focused health care services and has written a grant proposal to hire a mid-level practitioner to serve homeless youth at the Chaplaincy drop-in. If LLMC receives funding, the Suitcase Clinic plans to work closely with LLMC and the nurse practitioner to develop a collaborative effort to provide services to the youth. Suitcase Clinic volunteers could help setup the clinic, fundraise for supplies, provide medical assistant support, help with health education and referrals, accompany youth to follow-up appointments, and other tasks. If the LLMC does not receive funds for this position, the Suitcase Clinic still plans on establishing a third clinical site for youth by Sept. 2000 and hopes to continue working with LLMC on this effort.
With the proposed creation of the youth clinic, the recent creation of The LifeLong Clinic on Thursday nights and the planned creation of a second LLMC volunteer-run clinic on Saturday, the potential and need for collaboration among Berkeley’s providers to uninsured persons has become more evident. Coordinators from Berkeley Free Clinic, the Suitcase Clinic, The LifeLong Clinic, and perhaps the Berkeley Women’s Health Collective hope to have regular meetings to coordinate services, patient referrals, and other efforts.
How can these efforts continue and grow?
A Proposal
The Joint Medical Program at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health has been planning to apply for foundation funding for a Suitcase Clinic coordinator position. The role of this staff person would be to develop the capacity and resources necessary to establish the planned youth clinic and to coordinate collaborative efforts with other local health care providers, such as LLMC and Berkeley Free Clinic. It is hoped that this staff person would become more involved with community organizing and education efforts around issues of homelessness and health care for the uninsured/underserved over time. As originally conceived, the funds for this position would be obtained by the Chaplaincy to the Homeless and then subcontracted out to the Joint Medical Program which would supervise the work of this staff person.
An alternative proposal would be to have this staff person supervised by LLMC and funding for the position would come through LLMC. From the perspective of the Suitcase Clinic this has several advantages. Both the Chaplaincy and the University pose significant financial management barriers related to obtaining and managing the funds for this position. LLMC has an excellent track record with fundraising and fund management and could provide the necessary support for this position. From LLMC’s perspective this staff person could serve as a liaison between LLMC, the Chaplaincy to the Homeless, the University, and the Suitcase Clinic. This network can help LLMC increase its resources, obtain program-relevant research support, and enhance its capacity to advocate for policy and social change. This staff person could also take on the role of community organizer/educator that has been discussed at several of the City of Berkeley’s Task Force on the Uninsured meetings.
A second proposal is to begin to develop the Suitcase Clinic’s medical services divisions as partial satellite clinics for LLMC. LLMC currently has an established model of providing on-site, basic primary care services to residents at supportive housing sites. This model could be extended to include outreach efforts to the specific populations currently served by the Suitcase Clinic at their sites.
Two Proposals:
1) LLMC obtain funding for position and supervise position?
2) Suitcase Clinic medical services as partial satellite clinics of LLMC.
