Renton students get free sports physicals, mental health services - Renton Reporter
The Renton School District, Providence Health, and Seattle Sound F. C. put on a free event Thursday in ongoing efforts to remove barriers to physical and mental healthcare for students.
Published 4:30 pm Saturday, August 15, 2026By Betsy FroilandProfessional soccer players, physicians and students joined forces Thursday, Aug. 13 for a pop-up health fair in Renton. Hundreds of high school and middle school students from the Renton School District visited on-site physicians to get sports physicals before the start of the school year, learned about available mental health services, and snapped photos with athletes from the Seattle Sounders F. C. Everything was completely free at the Providence Swedish Performance Center & Clubhouse, the training facility for the Seattle Sounders. The event was the fourth installment of a multi-year partnership between the Renton School District, the Seattle Sounders F. C. soccer team and Providence Swedish healthcare services. Its main purpose: to remove barriers to physical and mental health services for Renton students. Dr. Steven Stanos, Providence Swedish’s Executive Medical Director for Rehabilitation and Performance Medicine, said about 310 students were registered for the event this year, an increase from last year’s 200. Students were seen by over 20 on-site volunteer physicians and nurse practitioners in private curtained stalls within the event space. Many of the physicians providing care to students also provided care for athletes on the Sounders, as well as the Seattle Storm, the Tacoma Defianceand Seattle University. “We’re taking [students’] health just as seriously as we take the health of the elite athletes,” Stanos said. On top of eye examinations, blood pressure tests and other routine components of a sports physical, this year for the first time in the event’s history students were screened by physicians from Seattle Children’s Cardiology to detect any undiagnosed cardiac conditions. Stanos said these conditions can fly under the radar for young people, especially if they are not regularly being seen by a doctor. “[For] a patient parent [who] doesn’t have insurance and they’re not taking their kid just to see a doctor, this is maybe their only chance each year,” Stanos said. On top of the free physicals, students in all 27 Renton schools could also sign up to receive free behavioral therapy appointments with bilingual and diverse licensed therapists through Hazel Health, a school-based tele-mental health provider. This service became available to students in 2023 as a result of an initiative to improve student mental health funded by Providence’s Well-Being Trust. Since the initiative launched in 2023, 1,900 Renton students have been referred for mental health support, 6,700 therapy sessions have been completed, and nearly 80% of participating students reported a reliable change, according to a report from the Renton School District. “It’s crazy to think most kids in high school and middle school have no access to that,” Stanos said. Damien Pattenaude, superintendent of the Renton School District, said that the event grew out of an effort to meet a real need in the community. He said Providence and the Sounders started by reaching out to staff that actually worked with students on a daily basis, “listening to those closest to the work, seeing what the needs were, and then developing a plan to move forward to support the students. ”The need they found was improving student mental health. Pattenaude said the pandemic took a toll on the mental health of the student body. “We’re still feeling the ripple effects,” Pattenaude said. While the pandemic opened up discussions on the need for mental health care, Pattenaude said “those needs have always existed. ”Physical and mental health go hand-in-hand, in Pattenaude’s view. “We firmly believe that participation in sports and afterschool activities is one way that supports students’ mental health,” Pattenaude said. Rebecca Bland, parent to two Renton students in school sports, said the event was sort of like a “full-meal deal,” a one-stop shop to get the kids ready for back to school. With Bland and her husband working full-time, she said getting everything done at once was a huge help. On top of convenience, Bland said the event was also a great way to build community, with athletic directors and superintendents floating about and intermingling with students. Building community was the whole point for Sunny Dhillon of the Sounders’ marketing team. Dhillon said the event was an opportunity for the Sounders to “plant roots within the community” in Renton, where the Sounders are based, by alleviating stress for Renton parents getting their kids ready for school sports. Bland said it felt like everyone was working toward the same goal: “to have these kids participate in their communities safely and healthily. ”