Finding a Way Through the Maze
One in eight children have a special health care need. Many of the children with special health care needs have more than one condition that they and their families must learn how to live with successfully.
For most of these children and their families, negotiating the health care, social service and educational systems is a maze that they find challenging, confusing and overwhelming.
The Caring Program: Care Coordination for Children with Special Health Care Needs and Their Families enables families to gain needed services by providing family-centered, community-based care coordination.
"Simply trying to understand what a child's needs are is difficult enough for the families of children with special health care needs. Attempting to discover where and how to obtain services to meet these needs is frequently frustrating and often next to impossible. These children and their families need our help."
-Mary Kay HolleranDirector, Caring Program
Limited Communication
The Highmark Caring Foundation listened to families, to physicians, and to other service providers in order to learn more about the issues facing families of children with special health care needs.
Families reported that they saw very limited coordination among all providers, with providers not often communicating plans with one another.
Physicians reported not having adequate knowledge of the specific community support services available to the children, and often not having the time or comfort level to provide care to children with special needs.
And community-based service providers reported having inadequate knowledge of other local providers and their services, with no time to learn about them, and a lack of collaboration and communication among all of the systems working with the child and family.
"The biggest challenge in caring for Amanda was coordination. Each specialist treated a different part of her body, yet no one really cared for her as one whole person."
-Liz WertzParent of a Child with Special Health Care Needs
Care Coordination
The Caring Program enables families to gain needed services by providing care coordination to children with special health care needs—a process that links these children and families to services and resources in a coordinated way to maximize the children's health and quality of life.
The Caring Program provides resources and support to these children by helping them through the maze of available services and programs and is available free of charge to children enrolled in Pennsylvania's Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) through Highmark. Services are provided in the 49 counties served by Highmark Inc.
More information
For more information about the Caring Program, contact 1-866-823-0892.
More details about the Caring Program: Care Coordination for Children with Special Health Care Needs can be found at the Caring Program's Web site.
