How Children's Hospital Boston Lives United
Founded in 1869, Children's Hospital Boston has a four-part mission encompassing community benefit
- Serve as the community’s safety net,
- Focus on the most pressing health care needs of children and families in local communities,
- Speak out as a voice for children through public policy advocacy, and
- Support essential partners to make Boston a better place for children and families and a more vibrant and livable city.
As a safety net hospital, Children's Hospital cares for all children in Massachusetts regardless of their ability to pay. The hospital offers family-centered services to ensure that basic needs are met for families caring for children, and also subsidizes hospital and community-based services that are scarce or unavailable in the community. They are the largest provider of medical care to low-income children in the state.
Children’s Hospital's efforts around community health are currently focused around asthma, mental health, injury prevention and fitness and nutrition. The hospital believes that these issues are best addressed by a coordinated, culturally sensitive, and child-centered program of prevention, treatment, education and advocacy. Examples include providing car seats and bike helmets to patients and collaboration with the Boston Public Schools on mental health issues, with program such as Children’s Hospital Neighborhood Partnerships (CHNP) and Advocating Success for Kids (ASK). Through advocacy work, the hospital hopes to positively affect each of these community issues as well as improve access to care and the quality of care for children throughout the Commonwealth and beyond.
Children's Hospital and United Way have partnered closely together on several projects related to early childhood development including Countdown to Kindergarten and, most recently, Thrive in 5. Thrive in 5 is a public/private collaboration focused on school readiness, addressing all dimensions of children's development and learning - ready families, ready educators, ready systems and ready city. Children’s, along with Partners Health Care and Boston Medical Center, is leading the Ready Systems component, and United Way is taking the lead on Ready Families.
