Child And Family Agency Receives $254,000 Federal Grant

A New London-based organization that oversees several school-based health centers in the region has received a $254,000 federal grant for renovations at clinics at two schools.

The Child and Family Agency of Southeastern Connecticut announced that it received the funds from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services - Health Resources and Services Administration.

The money will go toward renovations to a school-based health center in New London High School and renovations at Pawcatuck Middle School in Stonington in anticipation of the establishment of a new school-based health center there in 2013. The grant will also allow the organization to complete the transfer of most of its operations to an electronic medical records system.

Tom Gullotta, CEO of the Child and Family Agency of Southeastern Connecticut, thanked the school systems and groups partnering with the organization including Groton, LEARN, New London, Norwich, and Norwich Free Academy.

“For more than 20 years Child and Family with this region’s area pediatricians has served the mental and physical health care needs of thousands of children," said Gullotta.

"Our success in these recent competitive federal grants is in many ways an acknowledgement of the foresighted decisions that these school boards and superintendents made in partnering with Child and Family, a New London and Middlesex County organization, whose sole mission is promoting the welfare of this state’s young people.”

The Child and Family Agency of Southeastern Connecticut has received over $1 million in funding over the past year. It serves about 7,000 children in 17 school-based health centers in New London County with 14 full time nurse practitioners, 15 full time mental health clinicians, three part-time pediatricians and family physicians, and three child psychiatrists. The organization also serves an additional 10,000 children and families through outpatient and home-based child guidance services, child care, and after-school services.