Delta County has a new school-based health clinic.
Mariah Emond is the director of AKidzClinic in Delta, which opened last month.
"We are a new school-based health clinic that serves all of the Delta County youth ages 0-18 with primary care, mental health therapy and dental hygiene services," Emond says.
The clinic has a full time mental health therapist and part time dental hygienist who comes once a week to do cleanings.
The facility is still waiting on its nurse practitioner. She’s scheduled to start early next year.
Emond says the clinic is part the Delta County School District, but it’s mostly grant funded.
"And so with the cuts in the budget the school district was very open to having programs that could fill the needs they had but wasn't directly tied to their budget," she says.
Emond says kids don't need to be enrolled with district to use the clinic.
"We are targeting families that need access to care," she says. "In Delta County we have a health care provider shortage and we have a lot of families that are simply just not using care or who haven’t had access to care for a reasonable fee."
The clinic has a sliding fee scale for families that don't have insurance.
There are about 54 school-based health clinics in Colorado.