About Us
The Focus of the Highmark Caring Place
The Highmark Caring Place, a Center for Grieving Children, Adolescents and Their Families, is dedicated to grieving children and families, working to ensure that they find hope.
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The Caring Place champions the cause of grieving children by creating awareness of their needs, providing programs for grieving children and families and empowering the community to effectively serve grieving children.
The Caring Place was started in 1996, with the first Caring Place facility established in Pittsburgh in 1997. Now with sites in Erie (2001) and just outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (2003), the Caring Place has served more than 15,000 family members and community members.
Core Purpose To make a difference in the lives of grieving children. Core Values The core values of the Highmark Caring Place reflect the heart of our organization and the people within it. Our core values guide:
Relationship: We believe that we are stronger together than alone. We place a high value on people and relationships and approach all relationships with a responsiveness that embodies caring, compassion and concern. Respect: We believe in the intrinsic value of all human beings. We will approach all people and situations with minds and hearts open to difference, and act in a manner that preserves the dignity of others. Quality: We believe in excellence. We are committed to providing innovative programs based upon sound theoretical models that incorporate best practices. Integrity: We believe that how we act and interact is as important as what we achieve. We act and make decisions based on the highest ethical standards and we are committed to ensuring consistency between what we say and what we do. |
The Caring Place:
Helps
children (and adults) know they're not alone in their grief.
Provides
peer support to children and families who are grieving the death of a loved one.
Provides
a safe place with safe people so that the children can share their grief, their
feelings and their memories.
Is a place where grieving children and families receive
support and encouragement from others their age and from trained adult volunteers.
Helps
children build and keep memories of the person who died.
Encourages children to
express their feelings, memories and thoughts even when these are difficult to
express.
The Caring Place is family-centered. Services are provided at no cost to the families. The Caring Place is a community service, available to the whole community.
The Highmark Caring Place As A Part of the Highmark Caring Foundation
The Caring Place is a program of the Highmark Caring Foundation, which is an affiliate of Highmark Blue Shield, the largest health insurer in Pennsylvania.
Highmark Caring Foundation Mission
The Caring Foundation exists to make a difference for those in need — especially children and the uninsured.
The Caring Foundation is dedicated to improving the health and quality of life for children in need and their families.
The Caring Foundation creates innovative models that change systems of care for children and the uninsured.
The heart of the Caring Foundation is its commitment to children in need — children who are uninsured, grieving the death of a loved one or facing the challenge of a special health care need.
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Five Guiding Principles
- Identify an unmet need for children in the community.
- Champion the cause and advocate for children in need.
- Serve as a catalyst for change.
- Create innovative programs that can be replicated or driven to scale.
- Build partnerships and mobilize the community to work together to help children in need.
- Listening and responding to the needs of the underserved, at-risk and vulnerable populations.
- Uninsured Children — Serving the uninsured through
the pioneering Caring Program for Children—the first private sector program
in the nation focusing on the needs of uninsured children—and now administering
Pennsylvania's CHIP and adultBasic programs.
- Grieving Children — Meeting the needs of grieving children
and families through the Highmark Caring Place, a Center for Grieving Children,
Adolescents and Their Families, at sites in Pittsburgh, Erie and Central Pennsylvania.
- Special Needs Children — Prioritizing children with special health care needs and their families and creating a care coordination model of care.
The Highmark Caring Place Supported By the Caring Team
A consistent long-term supporter of the Caring Place is the Caring Team for Children, a special team of hundreds of schools, businesses and community partners that work together to raise funds and increase community awareness for the needs of children.
Since 1989, this partnership of 450 schools, professional sports teams, corporations and many others has raised awareness along with more than $4.5 million for children in need.
The Caring Team provides a fun way for schools to help children and families in their own school districts and communities while offering school teachers and administrators a way to teach students about the importance of teamwork and helping others.
Caring Team faculty, staff and students have the opportunity to tour Caring Place facilities to help educate students and teachers about children's grief while school personnel can receive written educational resources about the needs of grieving children.
