Financial Aid
to Families
There are numerous burdens placed on a family while their child is
critically ill. One major worry often comes from financial
hardships. Although our funding is limited, when
possible Gifts of Love has provided financial aid to families who are
having difficulty meeting basic financial commitments.
Examples of financial aid that we have
provided:
Gifts of Love has helped parents with the costs
of
travel and lodging, enabling parents to remain near their child in the
hospital.
Gifts of Love has also provided financial aid
to parents who have lost their job while their child was in the
NICU.
In
times of grief, Gifts of Love has helped parents with the costs of
funeral arrangements.
Educational
Programs Education
is essential to achieve our goal of helping critically ill babies and
their families. Gifts of Love provides various types of educational
opportunities to health-care professionals working with infants at risk.
One very exciting educational endeavor that Gifts of Love facilitated
was a seminar call Preemie for a Day. Premature babies face tremendous
challenges in their struggle to survive. This seminar sought to provide
better neurodevelopmental knowledge and resources to nurses and
therapists dealing with young preemies at risk. Due to the interest of
many Birmingham-area neonatal intensive care units, the seminar was
well attended by staff members from several of the local NICUs. This
seminar has facilitated a noticeable improvement in the
participation of neurodevelopmental projects intended to
improve the odds of our most challenged babies.
In 2003, Gifts of Love provided
the funding for four NICU staff members to attend national educational
meetings and for two Family Support team members to attend training
seminars for bereavement counseling.
Educational
Programs