Bedside Initiatives
Teddy Bears
Teddy bears are given to children to be with them every step of their transplant journey. From experiencing blood drawers, having procedures, to wearing a hospital bracelet like theirs…these bears help children feel less alone and support them in understanding medical experiences that are often hard to explain.
In addition, as siblings navigate their journey in a family affected by organ and tissue donation and transplantation, the bears can also provide a consistent companionship to them at a time of sudden and significant disruption and worry in their lives.
Care Bags
With our care bags, Hearts for Emma provides families with items to “help” make their hospital stay as comfortable as possible.
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Hospitals are cold – a fleece blanket enables a parent and/or patient to be warmer.
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Hospitals have very dry air – ChapSticks help keep lips hydrated.
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Hospitals are very noisy and brightly lit – ear plugs try to create a buffer from all those beeping machines. And, in the chance a family member gets to try to get some sleep, an eye mask is provided to help them.
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Hospitals notoriously do not have the softest tissues and families are often quite emotional – soft tissue packs are included.
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A journal and pen are perhaps the most important during every medical conversation. Sleepless days and nights do not provide for being alert. Along with all the medical information being given to a caregiver, having a journal and pen provides an opportunity to journal one’s thoughts during an extremely scary and stressful time.
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Breath mints are supplied, because everyone needs a “pop,” especially on endless days when a caregiver's oral care is limited.
Emma's Closet
By providing personal care items for families, caregivers have the opportunity to take care of their personal hygiene without having to leave the hospital to purchase their needed items. If families do have to purchase toiletries in NYC or Philadelphia, where our hospitals are located, it is often challenging, as prices in these cities are often much higher than in the towns they reside in.
If you, or an origanization, would like to donte travel sized toiletries for our families and caregivers, please email Nancie Rothman or visit our Amazon Wishlist.
Meal Card Program
We provide restaurant and cafeteria gift cards to families whose children are admitted for extended stays in the pediatric cardiac wards at New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York City (CHONY) Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and for Hassenfeld Children's Hospital at NYU Langone Medical Center.
Families use these gift cards to have a meal at the hospital or a restaurant nearby and return to their child’s bedside where they are needed. Often these meals are a parent’s only meal of the day and are especially important for the many families facing the financial strains of a long-term health crisis.
If you, or an organization, would like to donate money to be placed towards gift cards for our families and caregivers, please visit our donation form below and click 'meal card.'
#It'sYourRoom
Imagine a child in a sterile-looking hospital room. The average length of stay for waiting for a heart transplant is about 3 months. When a child’s room is decorated with posters, decals, and battery-operated lights- all themes to their liking, the room becomes less sterile looking, and even more comfortable especially during extended stays.
NICU Book Club
Books are given to caregivers to read to their child, who most often are connected to a variety of tubes & machines and can only be held, if at all, for short periods of time. Reading to their child gives caregiver an opportunity to have their voice soothe their baby and create a deeper connection through stories. We donate books in English and Spanish, and books appropriate for the Orthodox Jewish families on the unit.
Beads of Courage®
The Beads of Courage® program provides a tangible story of a child’s journey, honoring their strength, courage and resilience.
Each bead represents the courage shown during a treatment (for example, chemotherapy, injections, scans), an experience (hair loss, isolation, fever) or a milestone (completion of treatment).
Parents use Beads of Courage® to reflect on their child’s journey. The physical representation of each procedure and milestone allows them to see how far they’ve come as a family and can give them the strength to get through any future challenges.
Watch Me Grow
Watch Me Grow is a program in which a team of neonatal cardiac intensive care unit nurses create memory books for each baby on their unit. With the donated supplies such as folders, stickers, paper, and ink a scrapbook is created. Each week a page is created highlighting a patient’s growth, respiratory support, feeds, and milestones. The babies go through such huge changes and milestones during their stay, it is amazing to be able to show them to their parents in a tangible way. Nurses comment that when parents come in to visit their child they quickly go looking for their new weekly Watch Me Grow page!
Parents often talk about being able to show these memory books to their kids when they grow up, and use them for show and tell when they are in school. Sometimes their Watch Me Grow memory book captures some of the only positive memories these caregivers have to look back on as they bear the sorrow of losing their child.
A Complete Heart
Our initiative “A Complete Heart” was created to give families assistance while they have a child in a cardiac crisis. Through grants awarded to us from the Robert G. and Ellen S. Gutenstein Family Foundation, we have been able to give support to the family’s preadmission, while inpatient, and after discharge. This initiative “completes” our heart of support.
Many families while their child is in cardiac crisis must take a leave of absence or are fired from their jobs. Now, in addition to being focused on their ill child, caregivers have an added worry of living on one income or in some instances, no steady income. A family who can drive to and from the hospital needs help paying for gas. A family that has a child waiting for a heart transplant who can wait at home might need help with diapers, wipes, syringes, and detergent. How to pay for food while by your child’s bedside and how to feed the rest of your family is often challenging. Many first-time parents cannot afford a car seat, crib or mattress. We provide these items so that their baby can be discharged to travel safely and get home to a crib.
Charna's Club: Sibling Support Program
Charna’s Kids’ Club is a support program for siblings of patients at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, providing ongoing support for brothers and sisters of our inpatient population. Hearts for Emma supports Charna’s Club by donating items for the Charna’s Club Lounge…small toys, coloring books, journals, stickers, arts and crafts, game books, and much more! Although Charna’s Club is not facilitated at a patient’s bedside, it is a vital part of our hospital initiatives.
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Charna’s support program utilizes multiple creative modalities to meet the natural language of children, toward expressing the challenging feelings that siblings of hospitalized children experience on their unique hospital journey.
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Bereavement support is provided as well
Since Covid-19, we have been working even more closely with Charna’s Club Coordinator Alice Bergmann, LCSW, to put together tailored packages that are sent to at-home patients, siblings, and families (“sibling survival kits”). For older kids, this often comes in the form of Hearts for Emma journals, pens, mints, and chapstick. And for younger kids, it can include character coloring books, crayons, chalk, bubbles, or stickers.
Patient & Families Wish List
We work closely with nurses and child specialists to provide items that will help make the patients more comfortable, i.e., for babies, we provide mobiles, toys, crib items, and fans to cool off when the equipment needed to stay alive runs very hot. We donate nursing pillows for new moms. We grant “wishes” to caregivers at the bedside. Granted wishes have been yoga mats, jigsaw puzzles, adult coloring books, decks of cards; items to help make the time pass by, as often their child is sedated.
