Cape High Wellness Center to offer reproductive health services

For 20 years, Cape High has provided a Wellness Center, giving free health education to its students.

Now, the Wellness Center plans to add contraception and HIV testing to its services offered.

“By expanding services, we are making them more accessible,” said Jo Ann Economos of Cape High's Wellness Center during the Nov. 17 school board meeting.

There is a lack of reproductive health services in the beach area; the closest clinic is in Georgetown, Economos said.

Cape's Wellness Center works with healthcare professionals from Beebe Healthcare and the Delaware Department of Public Health to offer routine physicals, immunizations, mental health counseling and education on nutrition and anger and stress management.

Contraception options could include condoms, daily birth control pills, a three-month form of birth control known as the Depo-Provera shot, and an under-the-arm implant that providers say can prevent pregnancy for up to four years. A student would receive their chosen birth control method at the school, said Emily Knearl of the Division of Public Health.

Economos said a parent must sign a parental consent form in order for their child to use the Wellness Center. The student would then receive confidential treatment, she said.

However, state law states that a child as young as 12 can request diagnosis, treatment or prevention from a clinic for pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease without parental consent.

This includes a school wellness center, Knearl said.

“State law is clear that teens can consent to diagnosis and treatment from any medical provider for the services,” she said.

Board President Andy Lewis said he disagrees with a consent form that allows a child to receive treatment without notifying parents.

“If it's a blanket permission that the Wellness Center can provide whatever they want, too many parents will opt out because it's a parent's right to decide what they want to do for contraception,” he said. “I think you're going to lose more clients than you're going to help because there are going to be parents that will not provide you any opportunity for wellness on any of the other things.”

Economos said while the Wellness Center is an option for some, services are not for everyone. She said the board could consider a consent form that allows parents to circle what services they want their children to receive.

Carrie Snyder, nurse practitioner at Beebe Healthcare, said she previously worked at Laurel High's Wellness Center when the board added reproductive services there.

“Our consent allowed parents to opt out. Parents could choose the basic services that we always offered, and then they could choose whether students could receive contraception or condoms,” she said.

Snyder said 95 percent agreed to allow all services. “Parents who are going to take care of that at home are having those discussions. It's the students who don't have anyone – those are the ones who need these services,” she said.

Snyder said enrollment at Laurel increased when the school started offering reproductive healthcare.

Cape's proposal is to begin offering reproductive services by the end of the school year or beginning of 2017-18 school year. But Cape's Wellness Center could offer services now if a student needed pregnancy or sexually transmitted disease resources, said Economos.

Economos said funding comes from federal Title X money – funds set aside for family planning clinics. Students can receive treatment for free, but if they have health insurance they can pay through their insurance plan, Knearl said. “Services may or may not be billed through private insurance; that will vary by service and circumstances,” she said.

Gloria James, bureau chief of Adolescent and Reproductive Health for the Division of Public Health, said students who visit a Wellness Center receive counseling before they are given contraceptives.

“If someone is coming to get condoms, they have to be counseled. There's not just a basket that they can pick from,” she said.

Economos said staff also talks to students about abstinence, and they encourage students to talk to their parents.

Board member Jessica Tyndall said she supports Cape's Wellness Center expanding to offer reproductive services.

“When I was in high school, I would've been one of those students who would've come to you because I didn't feel like I could go to my parents and ask questions,” she said.

Board member Janis Hanwell said there has been a need for contraception services at Cape High since her daughter was a student about 11 years ago. “My daughter used to tell me how surprised she was of how many young girls, and boys, used abortion as a method of birth control,” she said.

Kathleen Whittam, a childbirth educator and doula in the Cape Region, said contraception services are needed at Cape.

“Why don't we try it? Give it a year or two,” she said. “I'd hate to see us not try because we think it's going to fail.”

Board member Roni Posner agreed. “For me, it's difficult to say we should not do something about this.”

Superintendent Robert Fulton said the board would continue discussion on consent forms. It could be an action item at the next board meeting, he said.

State law governing access to health information is laid out in Title 13, Chapter 7, section 710a.