About
The SA Kids Building Relationships, Effective Asthma Teaching in Home Environment, or SA Kids BREATHE (SAKB) program is a free city program. It was created in partnership with the South Texas Asthma Coalition. The program addresses high hospitalization rates among children with asthma.
Its primary goal is to improve the quality of the lives of children with asthma by teaching them and their families the best practices to control their asthma.
The SAKB program will help:
- keep kids out of the hospital
- keep kids in school
- keep parents at work
- save families and healthcare systems money
The community-driven initiative has an advisory council made up of nearly a dozen community advisors from different fields.
Services
We educate and support families of children with asthma. We meet families in their homes (or virtually) to improve their child's asthma control.
- 3 to 4 visits at home over a 4-month period
- Visit with a health care provider
- Visit with a school or daycare
- Support is provided over a 12-month period, as needed.
These services are provided by:
- Community Health Workers (CHWs)
- Guided by a Certified Asthma Educator and Registered Respiratory Therapist
- Translation services available
What You Will Learn & Receive
- Proper use of asthma devices
- About your child's asthma medicine
- Value of an Asthma Action Plan (AAP)
- Home review for triggers: allergens or irritants that make asthma worse
- Value of your child's healthcare team
- Value of your child's school nurse
- Referrals to community resources
- Green-cleaning kit, sleeping kit, and asthma guide
Eligibility
Children diagnosed with asthma must meet the following criteria to participate:
- Ages 3 to 17 at the start of the program.
- Lives within Bexar County at the start of the program.
- Asthma Criteria (must meet at least one):
- 1 hospitalization due to asthma in the past year
- 2 or more emergency, urgent care, or acute care visits due to asthma in the past year (virtual or in-person)
- 2 or more undocumented steroid bursts in the past year
- 2 or more unscheduled school treatments for asthma in the past week
- Missed 10% or more of school days in the past year due to asthma
Referral
We may receive a referral from:
- Caregivers
- School Nurses with Parental Consent
- Health Care Providers
- Hospital or Clinic Systems
- Managed Care Organizations
Referral Process
- Caregivers
- Please call the program directly at 210-207-7282
- Health Care Providers
-
- Print and complete the Provider Referral Form(PDF, 329KB).
- Send the completed referral via secure email to SA Kids BREATHE or fax it to 210-207-9757.
- School Nurses
-
You may provide our program information to the parents of your student, following your district protocol. The parents can call our team at 210-207-7282.
Otherwise, after obtaining parental consent, you can submit a referral form to our program:
- Print and complete the School Referral Form(PDF, 328KB).
- The form includes a section to document that you informed the student's caregivers of the referral.
- The linked PDF contains two pages: the first is an overview of the program, and the second is the referral form.
- Send the completed referral via secure email to SA Kids BREATHE or fax it to 210-207-9757.