History

The Highmark Caring Place, A Center for Grieving Children, Adolescents and Their Families, is a program of the Highmark Caring Foundation, an affiliate of Highmark that operates as a charitable organization committed to caring for children in need in western and central Pennsylvania.

The Highmark Caring Place program in Pittsburgh has been serving children and adults since its inception in 1996 when the newly formed Pittsburgh Center for Grieving Children became a program of the Highmark Caring Foundation. Initial groups met in area schools until December of 1997 when a state-of-the-art facility for the program was dedicated in downtown Pittsburgh.

Because of the success of the first program in Pittsburgh and through the support of Highmark, a second Caring Place facility was dedicated in Erie in May 2001. In August 2003, a third facility was opened in central Pennsylvania — in the small town of Lemoyne, just across the Susquehanna River from Harrisburg. A fourth facility was dedicated north of Pittsburgh in the Warrendale/Cranberry region in May 2009.

The Caring Place provides peer support to grieving children and their families. The larger mission of the Caring Place is to raise awareness in the community of the needs of grieving children and how to respond to them. Beyond peer support groups, the Caring Place provides referral services, adult telephone support and educational programs and resources for grieving children and families as well as consultation services, educational presentations and resources for schools and other professionals in the community who work with children.

The Caring Place is an essential community resource, offering services at no charge to any grieving child or adolescent. Since the opening of the Caring Place, the program has served more than 30,000 family members and community partners.

Caring Team for Children

From the beginning, the Highmark Caring Place has worked in partnership with the community to serve those in need. Tens of thousands of individuals and groups have donated time, energy and funds to help the Caring Place help grieving children and their families.

One of the Caring Foundation’s most successful collaborations, the Caring Team for Children is a unique partnership with hundreds of schools that raises awareness and support for grieving children. Started in southwestern Pennsylvania in 1989, the Caring Team concept has proven so successful that it expanded to the Erie region in 2003 and to central Pennsylvania in 2004.

The Caring Team is made up of more than 450 schools from western and central Pennsylvania along with Highmark and different partners in each of the regions, including the sports teams such as the Pittsburgh Steelers, Erie SeaWolves and Harrisburg Senators; community businesses like television stations WJET-TV, WHTM (abc27) and WTAE-TV; as well as partners like Max & Erma’s Restaurant and Starbucks Coffee Company.

This outpouring of community support has helped thousands of children through the years, having raised more than $5.5 million, including matching funds from Highmark.