Outside a modern clinic building, Jordan Valley Community Health Center, a sign towers over the parking lot. An ambulance is parked nearby.
ON SCREEN TEXT: Springfield, MO
ON SCREEN TEXT: JORDAN VALLEY
COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER
Pregnant?
Free Pregnancy Testing
Monday-Friday 8am-5pm
The name of the clinic is visible on an exterior wall. White text appears below the name.
ON SCREEN TEXT: JORDAN VALLEY
COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER
ON SCREEN TEXT: 43% of the local population is low income
Two women and three children walk into the clinic through double doors. One of the women, Danielle, wears a striped shirt and holds the hands of the two boys. The other woman, Lacey, wears a blue collared shirt and holds the older boy's hand as she guides the group down a hallway. The girl trails behind examining the hem of her shirt. In an exam room, Danielle sits with the younger boy and the girl.
DANIELLE: All right. Let's go, guys. I just been struggling for two years to get anything done through anybody.
LACEY: I met Danielle because she asked for a bus pass.
Lacey sits in a beige room talking to the camera. In another shot, Danielle and the older boy sit on the hallway floor with another woman. The boy leans forward and vocalizes in the woman's face as they play a game with their hands.
ON SCREEN TEXT: Lacey Martens
Community Health Worker
LACEY: And I looked into her chart and saw that she was having back pain because her eight-year-old autistic son is a big boy. Sometimes he's just hard to handle.
Back in the exam room, Lacey reads off a sheet of paper as Danielle sits with the younger boy on her lap.
LACEY: "During the past year, what was the total combined income for you and the family members you live with?"
ON SCREEN TEXT: Danielle Little
Jordan Valley Community Health Center - Patient
DANIELLE: I'd probably say maybe--maybe $10,000.
On the hallway floor, the woman gestures and speaks inaudibly with the older boy. Back in the exam room, Danielle continues speaking to Lacey.
DANIELLE: With me having two kids with autism, it's--it's just hard for me to let people into my inner circle. I don't.
In a cluttered office, a man wearing a tie, Dr. Matt Stinson, talks to the camera.
ON SCREEN TEXT: Dr. Matt Stinson
Jordan Valley Community Health Center
DR. STINSON: As much as we think health care is about numbers, it's really more about a relationship. So community health workers are helping us form a relationship outside.
In a large dingy room, a line of people wait. One swings a rolled up sleeping bag idly. A blond woman, Tina, puts a blood pressure cuff on a man wearing an American flag bandana around his head while another woman wearing a nametag looks at a clipboard. A man with a white goatee wears the blood pressure cuff and nods. Tina presses a button on an electronic device. Then Tina talks to the camera in a close-up.
ON SCREEN TEXT: Tina Shannon
Community Health Worker
TINA: The individuals that come here--most of them are homeless. You have to take care of the primary things, the important things like shelter and food and transportation before you can start worrying about your health.
At a table, Tina stands near a woman in a ball cap wearing the blood pressure cuff. Tina watches the electronic device attached to the blood pressure cuff. Nearby, the woman with the nametag smiles and talks inaudibly and the man with the American flag bandana bends to write on a sheet of paper.
ON SCREEN TEXT: FREE BLOOD PRESSURE CHECKS
TINA: And so we start meeting those needs, then you can start thinking about diabetes and blood pressure and things like that, so--Okay, good. 123/88 today.
Back in the beige room, Lacey continues talking to the camera. In the exam room, she chats with Danielle inaudibly.
LACEY: Just meeting with them and continuously showing that you care and that you're there to help and you're not there just in a medical profession. You care about them all around.
In the exam room, Danielle holds the younger boy on her lap and sits next to the girl as she talks.
DANIELLE: But when I have Lacey help me, it gets done. It really does. And I've never had that type of help without having to seek out an advocate or having to seek out somebody that is just--I just don't want in my life.
Danielle, the girl, and the younger boy walk down a hallway. The three stand close to a large sunny window looking out on buildings in the distance.
ON SCREEN TEXT: JORDAN VALLEY
COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER
DANIELLE: It's never out of her convenience. She's always there when I need her. She calls and checks on me just to see what I'm doing.
In the beige room, Lacey talks to the camera with tears in her eyes. She laughs as someone offscreen hands her a tissue, then dabs her eyes with it.
LACEY: It's rewarding. It makes every day worth it. [laughs] Thank you.
Lacey, Danielle, the girl, and the younger boy push through double doors into a sunny room beyond.
LACEY: Yay!
The screen fades to white and blue text appears.
ON SCREEN TEXT: Thanks to a $1.5 million grant
from UnitedHealthcare in 2018,
15 community health workers
reached over 10,500 people
across Springfield during the first year
of the program to help them
access health care and social services
And this is just the beginning.