Children’s Fund – CHOP’s Flexible Funding Resource

As one of the region’s largest charities focused on children’s health, CHOP relies on donations to deliver breakthrough care. We continually assess the health and wellness needs of the communities we serve, match it against our current programs and determine how we can close any gaps.

One way we do this is with support of the Children’s Fund – CHOP’s flexible funding resource.

Because it is not limited to a specific use, we can draw upon the Children’s Fund when there is a need for quick action: a discovery that needs to be fast-tracked, a new piece of equipment that can transform patient care or research, an idea for a patient support service or the chance to hire a leading expert – just to name a few possibilities.

Here are just a few of the programs and initiatives that have been advanced by unrestricted donations:

Music and pet therapy, as well as other Child Life activities

The Child Life Department’s mission is to help children of all ages and their families cope with illness, injury, treatment, hospitalization and the overall healthcare experience. Many of the needs of the department that arise are not covered by insurance and are only made possible because of our generous donors. In addition to music and pet therapy, decorations, parades and other initiatives to make patient life more positive can all fall under this area of service.

Free language services for families

To meet the needs of our diverse patient population, CHOP has invested unrestricted Children’s Fund dollars to provide language and communication assistance at no cost to patients and their families/representatives. As of 2018, 80 languages are spoken here at CHOP and our language services staff encounter more than 100,000 individual requests from patient families. We offer the following to our families free of charge:

• In-person language interpretation with professional medical interpreters
• In-person sign language interpretation and telecommunication devices for the deaf (TDD/TTY)
• Access to telephone interpretation for multiple languages and the hearing impaired from any CHOP phone
• Video remote interpreting in select locations
• Telephone relay services or other assistive technology
• Document translation

CHOP Mothers’ Milk Bank

In 2006, CHOP invested unrestricted support from the Children’s Fund to develop an on-site milk bank to produce pasteurized donor human milk for hospitalized infants. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization both recommend human milk as the sole form of nutrition for all infants during the first six months of life. Human milk is especially important for vulnerable, at-risk infants, for optimal health and developmental outcomes such as lowering chances of sepsis and infections, decreasing risk of chronic lung disease and improving brain development and heart function. Currently, 99% of mothers in our Special Delivery Unit initiate pumping for their critically ill infants and 86% of our nursing babies are discharged on human milk.

Through your support of For Tomorrow’s Breakthroughs, you will empower CHOP to invest in worthwhile programs and initiatives in real time. You may choose to support the Children’s Fund or invest in another area that touches your heart. Please give today.