For Immediate Release: December 14, 2018
Contact: Angela Elles, angela@ginngroupconsulting.com

Heartland Health Centers CEO and SMART™ Student Health Professionals Receive “Reaching, All, Transforming Lives” Awards Following Annual D.C. Symposium
SMART Model Architect Melanie Ginn Presented the Awards

Jami Leveen, Aramark; Javonte Barber, Sullivan High School SMART Center; David Casey, CVS Heath; Gwenn Rausch, Heartland Health Centers; Ernie DuPont, CVS Health; Dr. Julia Boothe, Pickens County Primary Care, and Melanie Ginn, Ginn Group Collaborative, celebrate with the Chicago awardees

(Washington, D.C.) Two Chicago health care leaders recently received the first “Reaching All, Transforming Lives” awards from SMART Model architect Melanie Ginn of Ginn Group Collaborative (GGC) and Ernie DuPont of CVS Health (CVSH), at the semi-formal reception and dinner following the 2018 Annual SMART Symposium, on December 4th in Washington, D.C. Recipients of the awards were Gwenn Rausch, CEO Heartland Health Centers (HHC), medical provider partner for SMART sites in Chicago; and Javonte Barber, Utilization Manager at the Sullivan High School SMART Student Health and Wellness Center. Two of the honorees’ SMART colleagues in Alabama were also honored: Dr. Julia Boothe, Founder of Pickens County Primary Care, medical provider partner for SMART sites in rural Alabama, and Dr. Karl Hamner, Director of the Office of Evaluation of the University of Alabama College of Education. Each honoree has played a unique leadership role in ensuring the success of SMART Student Health and Wellness Centers in their regions. For each of these leaders, “success” is, in part, defined by each of their significant efforts that resulted in positively impacting the trajectories of children’s lives. SMART stands for School Health Model for Academics Reaching ALL Transforming Lives.

Three years after having established the SMART flagship site in Chicago, Heartland Health Centers was selected as the new medical provider partner, under the leadership of CEO Rausch. At that time, all of the existing SMART Clinic employees were transferred to HHC for a seamless transition that allowed for no disruption of care, continued improvements and care coordination for the students, as well as utilization growth.

“Under Gwenn’s visionary leadership, and the outstanding expertise of her Chief Medical Officer, Laurie Carrier, M.D., Medical Director, Jay Mayefsky, M.D., COO Letty Sargant, and School Health Director, Megan Erskine, her extraordinary working relationship with GGC has fueled the success and expansion of the Model to three other schools, with plans for more,” stated Ginn, President and CEO of GGC.

In note of Barber’s award, “Although Javonte was not a member of the original core team that worked with GGC to establish the flagship SMART Clinic, his infectious joy, deep commitment to students, and powerful organizational and leadership skills have made him an instrumental and beloved member of the SMART Transformation Team, and led to his promotion to a management role,” Ginn shared during the presentation of his award.

The “Reaching All, Transforming Lives” Award is in the shape of a blue crystal iceberg, which symbolizes SMART’s “Whole Child” approach to health care. SMART builds long-term relationships, through an Active Access approach, with the students and their families and school faculty and staff, to understand and address the often-unseen risks to their wellness that could lie beneath the surface, negatively impacting their academic and future success in life.

Jami Leveen, Aramark; Javonte Barber, Sullivan High School SMART Center; David Casey, CVS Heath; Gwenn Rausch, Heartland Health Centers; Ernie DuPont, CVS Health; Dr. Julia Boothe, Pickens County Primary Care, and Melanie Ginn, Ginn Group Collaborative, celebrate with the Chicago awardees.

“I hope these beautiful awards will serve as a wonderful reminder to these individuals of their continued strength as leaders that recognized the possibilities, continue to help us challenge the status quo, and thus bring “Whole Child” care to so many more students whose lives have truly been transformed,” said Ginn.

The gathering was a celebratory dinner topping off the day-long SMART Symposium, a meeting of disciplinary leaders from the education, healthcare, and private sectors interacting in order to highlight the leadership and culture required to sustain this transformative solution that is delivering dramatic outcomes for entire school populations in both urban and rural flagship sites, from grades pre-kindergarten–12. The annual event was co-hosted by the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, SMART’s multi-cultural advisor, and GGC, and sponsored by CVSH and Aramark. In attendance were key members of CVSH’s Workforce Development, David Casey, Vice President, Workforce Strategies and Chief Diversity Officer and Ernie DuPont, Senior Director of Workforce Initiatives, as well as Jami Leveen, Director, Communications and Strategic Partnerships at Aramark. The following day, all the SMART Award Recipients and attendees were welcomed at a Congressional Briefing at the Dirksen Senate Building, which included greetings from Senator Orrin Hatch’s (R-UT) office, address praising their efforts by Congresswoman Terri Sewell (D-AL), and a white paper presentation on the leadership and culture that has created the success of the Model, by Dr. Liza Cariaga- Lo of Brown University.

SMART is a school health solution dedicated to improving academic achievement in order to break the cycle of poverty, creating a new, antecedent component on the health care continuum. The award-winning public-private partnership that fuels the SMART Student Health and Wellness Model is revolutionizing health care in public schools. This best practice Model is being successfully operated in selected urban and rural regions, including Chicago and rural Alabama, with plans to expand to other cities over the next 5 years. The flagship clinic was funded by Legacy Sponsor, CVSH, whose support continues to this day, now joined by Aramark with a 5-year commitment to sustain and expand the Model.

SMART was developed in Chicago in 2013, and the flagship SMART Center at Sullivan High School has now entered its sixth year of operation. There, the Model has a tremendous track record of routinely consenting an average of 98% of the student population and providing care for 100% of those students, thus significantly increasing attendance by 3-4%, and improving the school’s academic metrics and rating, all at lower operational costs than traditional models. Active Care, a key component of the SMART Model, is deployed via Active Access, a dramatically changed capacity for impact, routinely reaching 95–98% of students, without increasing net costs. Sullivan Principal Chad Adams credits the SMART Model with influencing the culture of his school, “As I reflect on the turmoil I encountered while working to turn around a failing school, I now realize that having the SMART Clinic was the primary differentiator for us in that process,” he said.

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About Ginn Group Collaborative
Ginn Group Collaborative (GGC), led by President and CEO Melanie Ginn, is a nationally recognized design management firm with a proven track record in delivering exceptional outcomes and incisive analysis for clients. GGC brings objective and insightful perspective and expertise to review, research, develop, and deliver advanced business and legal analysis, strategies, and solutions. Learn more at ginngroupconsulting.com.