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Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic (OBCC) provides more than 44,000 clinical visits each year. Our core services include primary medical, dental and behavioral health for children, teens and young adults — regardless of a family’s ability to pay. We offer coordinated care that addresses the root causes of illness, including social, economic and environmental factors. Our diverse team reflects the communities we serve and advocates for their overall well-being.
First and foremost, I want to thank the community of people who make up the heart and soul of Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic (OBCC). The children, teens, young adults and their parents or caregivers who trust us with so much of their health needs. The providers, nurses, registration coordinators, schedulers, building maintenance workers, social workers, behavioral health specialists, dentists, care coordinators and many others who show up every day to bring quality care with dignity to generations of OBCC patient families. The community partners whose collaborations enable us to provide families with critical support services. The amazing volunteers who help with community events like mobile vaccine clinics and our generous philanthropic community members who donate their time and money to support us. OBCC wouldn’t exist without you.
There is so much good to highlight from the past year. We’re seeing more patients, offering more services and doing it in a community and data-informed way. We set up a Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) dashboard to monitor our patient community’s greatest non-medical needs, like housing, transportation, food or financial resources. We received awards from the Washington State Department of Health for our outstanding vaccination rates, as well as a quality improvement award from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) for universal screening for substance use disorders. Our list of achievements is extensive.
A hallmark of our care is our commitment to enabling services and special programs that address specific health needs within our community. In conversations and meetings between Seattle Children’s and OBCC leaders and staff, community partners and patient families, mental health has clearly emerged as a priority concern.
OBCC announced an expanded commitment to addressing this concern at its community homecoming event in October 2023. Hundreds of community members gathered at OBCC’s future site in the Central District to hear how the new location will offer primary care and expanded mental and behavioral health services, including evaluations for autism spectrum disorder for current OBCC patients. We will also start offering services dedicated to addressing trauma, including human trafficking, domestic violence, substance use disorder, child abuse and firearm violence. A community workgroup is currently helping to build and define these services.
OBCC also launched a pilot program to hire community mental health workers to provide patient families with mental health screening, brief intervention and referrals to therapy. The program has been wildly successful. The OBCC Community Governance Council has approved its continuation with internal funding.
In June 2024, OBCC staff were onsite at the teen health center at Garfield High School when a student was tragically shot and killed on campus. OBCC leaders, social workers, community care coordinators, providers, community mental health workers and mental health therapists immediately jumped in to provide care that day and throughout the summer to the school’s students, parents, staff and community. It was incredibly powerful to witness the Central District community’s overwhelming outpouring of support with more than just thoughts and prayers, and OBCC’s small but important role in helping our neighbors and the entire community grapple with this terrible tragedy. I have never been prouder to be part of the OBCC team.
There is much to look forward to in 2025. A recent grant from the Washington State Department of Health enables us to expand mental health services in our school-based clinics. A second grant allows us to provide naloxone and other substance use disorder support at no cost to our patients, families and community. Naloxone is a medicine that rapidly reverses opioid overdoses.
Last but not least, the first phase of services, focused on mental and behavioral health, will open in summer 2025 at OBCC Central District’s new location on the corner of 18th Avenue S and S Jackson Street. The second phase, focused on medical services, is expected to open in early 2026.
OBCC is deeply rooted in the community we serve. With your support, we will continue to tackle unmet needs, advocate for families and provide compassionate, quality care with dignity.
With gratitude,
Shaquita Bell, MD
Senior Medical Director, OBCC
Samir was born five weeks premature and weighed just 4 pounds when he left the hospital. He was jaundiced and struggled to latch to his mother’s breast. Samir needed medical appointments every 3 days to track his weight and ensure his jaundice was under control. Miracle turned to OBCC for the care she and Samir needed. “I went to the Central District location throughout my childhood,” Miracle says. “I’ve always felt like a priority there.”
Gifts to OBCC help families get the hope, care and cures they need in the heart of our community. With 70% to 80% of our patient families on Medicaid, which reimburses just 11 cents on the dollar, philanthropy is essential to ensuring equitable pediatric healthcare for all families. Thanks in part to the support of our donors, OBCC will continue providing quality care with dignity to children and families for another 50 years.