Ariana Salaiz
Program Manager, WCAAP
WCAAP, in collaboration with WithinReach and DOH, created postcards, letters, and a social media toolkit to help clinics and schools raise awareness about the importance of staying up to date on vaccinations and the COVID-19 vaccine for children 12 and older. The messages created encourage parents to ensure their children have all vaccines for their safety while playing in the sun this summer as well as getting the required vaccines for the up-coming school year.
WCAAP also obtained public facing media to discuss topics such as myocarditis and pericarditis post-vaccination with news channels such as Univision, Q13 FOX TV, KIRO 7 TV, and KING 5 TV. We have earned media on adolescents and the COVID-19 vaccine several times so far this year and media outlets continue to rely on WCAAP expertise. In addition to the COVID-19 information, we gained media coverage on the decrease of vaccination rates in youth and the critical need for nurses in school buildings as kids return to in-person learning.
In addition, WCAAP’s Champions for Youth Steering Committee, part of our Child Health Improvement Partnership (WA-CHIP), has been a critical place for primary care providers, state agencies and school nurses and school leaders to come together on common strategies to overcome childhood and adolescent vaccine coverage gaps and to work together to increase uptake in the COVID-19 vaccine. The WA-CHIP Steering Committee creates one of the only common tables we know of to ensure broad-based cross sector collaboration to increase child and adolescent vaccine coverage – including primary care providers, the Department of Health, Health Care Authority, Public Health – Seattle & King County, the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and school nurses.