Hospital-Community Partners Create Resources to Lessen Pandemic’s Impact on Families

The Community Health Improvement Team at Franciscan Health saw the impact of COVID-19 and knew something needed to be done. The health system's 12 hospitals serve communities in Indiana and Illinois. Team members began contacting a variety of community partners — local youth service bureaus, schools, churches and essential service providers — to determine the needs of families during this extraordinary and challenging time.

The response was great: Community organizations identified an overwhelming need for information and materials about stress management, healthy family relationships, physical activity, mental health and learning enrichment. With this feedback, Franciscan Health staff put together and delivered more than 3,000 family resource kits. The kits contained coloring books and crayons, mindfulness activity instructions, mood meters for children, a list of mental health resources for adults, and more. They were distributed with the help of the health system’s many community partners. Franciscan Health and its Community Health Improvement Team value this kind of collaboration to help meet the needs of children and families and improve individual and community health and well-being.