Addressing Food Insecurities in SBHCs

The School-Based Health Alliance (SBHA) and Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign (NKH) believe that by working together to embrace and build on families’ trust in SBHCs, we can promote federal nutrition programs and nutritious food consumption in support of positive health outcomes and improved food security.

We convened an initial learning network comprising 16 health center leaders and champions across the nation who came together over 11 months to implement a community-driven food security solution in their health centers. Participating SBHCs represented diverse communities, resulting in various approaches to tackling food insecurity. Participants remarked on the economic and social barriers to sustainable programming that addresses food insecurity. Key themes and recommendations include prioritizing dedicated staff, managing stigma, using targeted policy advocacy, developing state learning networks, and acknowledging the importance of tailored community-specific approaches. 

Learnings from the initial cohort were gathered in “Emerging Models And Resources To Address Food Insecurity In School-Based Health Centers,” a toolkit that highlights promising practices for integrating nutrition and food access into SBHC services to address social influencers of health, improve food security for families, and support student success and wellness.

In July 2023, SBHA and NKH launched a learning network of two State Affiliates—the Ohio School-Based Health Alliance and Youth Healthcare Alliance (YHA) of Colorado—to support them in creating food access learning networks in their own states, which launched in Fall 2023. The Ohio SBHA selected 12 sites and YHA selected 10 sites. SBHA and NKH are supporting their efforts to generate more impact at the state and local levels.