The Family Support Network

The Family Support Network is a program designed for the patients and families of The Children’s Heart Center. The goal of this network is to provide support and access to resources that extend beyond the services our families already receive while in the hospital.

The Family Support Network also provides families with the opportunity to support and gain insight from each other’s experience with congenital heart disease. The first initiative of the Family Support Network is the program, “Coaching Hearts”.

Coaching Hearts is a program designed to connect newly diagnosed patients and/or new surgical candidates with experienced patients and families of our center. The family coach will help reduce a family’s sense of isolation, provide information on their experience and support the family throughout the difficult course of diagnosis and treatment. Upcoming initiatives will include support groups for parents, children and adolescents; a quarterly newsletter and an online community.

Would you like to volunteer to be a "coach" ? Download our Coaching Hearts volunteer application form (PDF).

For more information, please contact Alicia Erickson Zink, LSW at 973-926-6715.

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