Grant makes play possible for all critically ill infants at Children’s Mercy Kansas City
Children’s Mercy Kansas City has been chosen as a recipient of a $14,500 grant from The Toy Foundation to support adaptive equipment to make play possible for all infants regardless of diagnosis or developmental abilities. Children’s Mercy has approx. 150 beds in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and Pediatric Intensive Care Unit with nearly 100 of those beds occupied by infants with specialized critical care needs.
“With such a high census, we are limited in our ability to have adaptive tools and toys for children who have specialized needs,” Lucy Raab, Children’s Mercy Assistant Director of Child Life, said. “Due to this grant, we will now be able to expand the developmental services we provide to our tiniest patients on a daily basis – what a gift!”
Children’s Mercy is among 11 children’s hospitals selected to receive a play grant through a partnership between The Toy Foundation and the Children’s Hospital Association (CHA). The Toy Foundation is a nonprofit children’s charitable organization that works with the toy industry to provide support through play opportunities to children across the country.
The patients who will be served by this grant will be infants with tracheostomies, intubated, physical disabilities, and any infant admitted for an extended hospital stay. The goal is to not only increase the number of patients served, but also to increase the time they spend out of bed.
“Through this grants partnership, thousands of pediatric patients at children’s hospitals will have access to creative play as part of their healing process,” said Kathleen Campisano, Chairperson of The Toy Foundation’s Children's Hospital Program Committee. “Seeing the power of play enhance the developmental needs of hospitalized children is our overarching goal.”
Gifts to make play more accessible within the hospital, strengthen the social, emotional, physical and behavioral development of all children.
Visit childrensmercy.org/helpkids to learn how you can make a direct impact at Children’s Mercy and visit the CHA website to learn more about the Child’s Play Grants for Play Projects.