FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
National Pediatric Health Charity Unveils Network of School-Based Wellness Clinics to Tackle Care Gaps and Boost Student Achievement
Evidence-backed initiative will embed medical, mental-health and dental services inside 50 Title-I campuses across five states by 2026, targeting 25,000 underserved children.
CLEVELAND, Nov. 21, 2025 — Bright Futures Children’s Health Fund, one of the nation’s largest pediatric philanthropies, today announced the launch of its School-Based Wellness Clinic Initiative, a five-year, $44 million program designed to bring comprehensive primary care directly to students in communities with the greatest unmet need. Starting in January 2026, the charity will open or upgrade on-campus clinics in 50 elementary, middle and high schools across Ohio, Michigan, Texas, Florida and California, expecting to record 75,000 patient visits annually by 2028.
“We are meeting kids where they already are—at school—eliminating transportation barriers and missed class time that too often derail vulnerable families,” said Elena Ramírez, Ph.D., Bright Futures CEO. “By integrating medical, behavioral and preventive services into the academic day, we can detect asthma, depression or dental disease early and keep students healthy, present and ready to learn.”
Recent data from the Los Angeles Trust for Children’s Health illustrate the model’s promise: students who visited a school-based health center added an average of 5.4 school days per year and 7 days after a mental-health visit, a measurable lift in attendance that translates into higher math and reading scores . Nationally, more than 2,600 similar centers operate, yet fewer than half offer the full spectrum of care—medical, mental, dental, vision—that Bright Futures will provide .
Each Bright Futures clinic will be staffed by a pediatric nurse practitioner, licensed clinical social worker, dental hygienist and care coordinator. Services will include annual physicals, immunizations, chronic-disease management, trauma-informed counseling and tele-dentistry, regardless of a family’s insurance status or ability to pay. A cloud-based electronic health record will be shared with regional hospitals to ensure continuity.
“A student with uncontrolled asthma or untreated anxiety can’t focus on algebra,” Ramírez noted. “Our pilot sites in Cleveland increased average daily attendance by 6.2 percent within two semesters while reducing emergency-department visits by 28 percent, outcomes that more than justify the investment.”
Market research underscores the urgency. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 1 in 5 adolescents experienced a major depressive episode in 2024, yet 60 percent received no treatment. Among children covered by Medicaid, school-based centers cut non-urgent ER use by 24 percent and lowered per-patient annual spending by $361, according to a 2025 analysis by the National Association of Medicaid Directors. Bright Futures projects $11 million in downstream savings to Medicaid and CHIP programs over the initiative’s first three years.
The charity has secured $30 million in committed funds from corporate partners, including two national insurers and a grocery-retail foundation, and will leverage $14 million in anticipated public matching grants. Local United Way chapters will provide volunteer dental and vision professionals, while university schools of nursing have pledged 120 graduate trainees per semester for onsite clinical rotations.
Expansion will begin in high-poverty districts identified by County Health Rankings & Roadmaps as having ratios of 3,000 children per pediatrician. Site selection criteria also include existing school nurse staffing levels, community gun-violence indices and asthma hospitalization rates. After year-one evaluations, Bright Futures plans to replicate the model in an additional 75 campuses and publish an open-source toolkit for school districts nationwide.
About Bright Futures Children’s Health Fund
Bright Futures Children’s Health Fund is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to advancing health equity for children living in under-resourced communities. Since 2008, the charity has invested $278 million in pediatric programs that integrate medical care, public health research and policy advocacy, improving outcomes for more than 1.2 million children in 38 states.
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