The Carole Landis Foundation awarded $24,000 in grants in June to support four social action programs in the Philadelphia/Delaware Valley area. Two are hospital-based at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP).
Our Foundation stands against exploitation-aggressions against women and girls, such as sex trafficking and domestic violence. We support vulnerable populations (the definition which has now expanded exponentially) in all communities, not just those with marginalized populations. We support programs that fight hunger - for anyone who must stand in line for food. We care about children with chronic illness and disease.
The week of July 19, 2021, The Hole in The Wall Gang Camp (HIWGC) in Connecticut brings its summer outdoor programs to CHOP, Philadelphia. The halls and the Atrium are filled with laughter, singing, cheers and whoops, and the patients decorate their room windows with colorful signs. The halls are decorated for "A special kind of healing", a motto of founder Paul Newman. The HIWGC hospital outreach program counselors pivoted last year during Covid and provided totally virtual in-room programs, and/or one-one patient visits via Zoom. Through creative activities brought to each room through the hospital’s in-house CHOP TV production studio, the kids can now still enjoy story-telling with celebrities, sing-a-longs, magic, puppet shows, and crafts.
In July, 2021, the Foundation contributed the creative kits that accompany the many activities run by the camp hospital outreach counselors - some in-room, many in-person in The Atrium. The kits contain glitter glue sticks, scissors, paste, construction paper, crayons, paints, and ingredients for Slime Day - the patients' favorite activity of Camp Week, where they get to "slime" their favorite doctors and healthcare support staff.
For one week, CHOP patients try not to focus on their illnesses and identity of being "sick all the time"; they get to be silly and be kids and get to say - for real - "I went to camp this summer."
In June, the foundation awarded a grant for the first time to Lutheran Settlement House’s STOP IPV (Intimate Partner Violence) Program at two of CHOP's facilities - the main hospital and a close-by out-patient facility. This innovative hospital-based domestic violence intervention program retains full-time medical advocates (social workers) who work with medical and hospital staff to screen and identify those children who present with injuries and emotional trauma that may relate to living in homes where there is violence.
The medical advocacy program connects domestic violence victims (predominantly women and their children) who visit CHOP and their clinics with services such as safety planning, emergency housing, counseling, and children's trauma play therapy. This service provides for siblings of the identified patient as well. The IPV staff provide training to all CHOP medical staff and support healthcare staff in how to screen and identify domestic violence and how to access the IPV counselors and resource referral material.
The program served 860 children in 2019, and 372 in 2020. The Covid pandemic influenced how people reached out to healthcare resources.
45% of children living in violent homes were ages 6-13. 35% were children under 5 years.
Next month's news will address the awarded June grants addressing commercial sex trafficking in Philadelphia and throughout the state of Pennsylvania. Another grant was awarded to help fight hunger in low-income neighborhoods of Chester and Montgomery County with youth-led initiatives.
