The health care-child welfare partnership: transitioning medically complex children to the community

Area of Science:

• Pediatrics
• Child Welfare
• Healthcare Management

Background:

• Increasing number of medically complex children in hospitals require home care solutions.
• Parental inability to provide necessary home care presents a significant challenge.
• Existing home care resources are insufficient for this specialized population.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and describe a novel home care resource model for medically complex children.
• To address the gap in home care for children whose parents cannot provide it.
• To detail a federally funded grant project focused on alternative home care solutions.

Main Methods:

• Established a partnership between a pediatric hospital and a community child welfare agency.
• Recruited, trained, and provided ongoing support to foster parents.
• Focused on creating sustainable alternative home care resources.

Main Results:

• Successfully recruited and trained foster parents for medically complex children.
• Demonstrated the feasibility of a collaborative model for developing home care resources.
• Identified key challenges and effective strategies in implementing the program.

Conclusions:

• The project successfully developed an innovative model for home care for medically complex children.
• Partnerships between healthcare institutions and child welfare agencies are crucial for success.
• This approach offers a viable solution for children needing specialized home care beyond parental capacity.