Our Adoption & Permanency Services have evolved to not only find homes for children within the Statewide Adoption and Permanency Network (SWAN), but also through private infant adoptions.
In the 1980s, we realized there was a need to help families who were in need of resources and training as they learned how to care for their premature infants. We filled this need by creating Transitional Infant Care (TIC) in 1984. TIC has since grown to our 30-bed Pediatric Specialty Hospital, where today we provide transitional care alongside acute care for medically fragile infants and children up to age 21. Families can stay on-site at their child’s bedside or within the Lemieux Family Center. Families participate in and learn their child’s medical care so they are fully prepared to provide care once they are discharged home.
And in 1998, when we realized the lack of childcare and resources available to families with a medically fragile child, we lobbied for licensure, and opened the first Pediatric Extended Care Center in Pennsylvania, Child’s Way. Child’s Way serves medically fragile infants and children up to age 21. Our program offers more than medical care, Child’s Way is a 4 out of 4 Keystone Stars accredited early education facility where children not only receive the daily medical attention they need, but they also enjoy opportunities to learn and socialize with their peers.
We’ve extended our Counseling Services, which used to focus solely on Infertility Counseling, Birthmother Counseling, and Adoptive Family Counseling, to include Assisted/Third Party Reproductive Technology Counseling and Counseling for Donor Conceived Individuals.
In 2021, The Children’s Home welcomed the Pediatric VIEW Program, lead by Christine Roman-Lantzy, Ph.D. to it’s programs. This initiative treats patients with cortical visual impairment (CVI), a visual disfunction that occurs within the brain, not the eye. Within Pediatric VIEW, patients receive the tools they need to positively experience the world around them and identify objects they see in everyday life. We focus on our core mission of CVI awareness, early identification, advocacy, and education.
Pediatric VIEW began in the 1990s as an extension of NICU follow-up programs in a Pittsburgh-based hospital. It has been continually administered by Dr. Christine Roman-Lantzy, growing from a local program to one that serves families nationally. During the 30 years that this program has been in existence, it has positively impacted the lives of more than 2,500 neonates and pediatric patients who have experienced birth-related trauma.
In the summer of 2023, The Children’s Home developed and launched it’s Therapy Services Program. We have created a cohesive continuum of care for children, where our therapists, teachers, and nurses work together with families to optimize a child’s individualized plan and progress. Services include occupational, physical, feeding, speech, developmental, and vision therapy and can be administered inpatient, outpatient, or through early intervention.
We specialize in complex swallowing, CVI, seating and mobility, sensory integration, splitting and casting, augmentation communication, and assistive technology.
