NN/LM Dragonfly: Empowering Parents of Children with Special Health Care Needs

[NNLM PNR]

Focus on Funding Series.
Part III: Empowering Parents of Children with Special Health Care Needs

By Gail Kouame
Consumer Health Coordinator, NN/LM PNR

This is the third in a series of articles highlighting five projects in
the Pacific Northwest Region emphasizing Access to Electronic Health
Information. The projects received funding from the National Library of
Medicine (NLM) with a maximum award of $40,000. For further information
about funding opportunities, visit our web site at:
http://nnlm.gov/pnr/funding/.

Empowering Parents of Children with Special Health Care Needs

 The lead agency for this project is the Center for Children with Special
Needs at Childrens Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle,
Washington. Children with special health care needs are those with chronic
physical, developmental, behavioral or emotional conditions that require
health services beyond those required by children generally.

The purpose of this project is to train parents of children with special
health care needs to advance their skills and abilities in using the
Internet to seek health information and resources. Parents of these
children continually express the need for current, reliable information
and to understand and be informed about resources locally, nationally, and
internationally that will assist them in providing care, advocating for
their children, and monitoring emerging health care research. In
partnership with the Washington State Fathers Network and Washington State
Parent to Parent Support Programs, the Center for Children with Special
Needs will develop a skills-based train-the-trainer curriculum with parent
input that will provide the basis for the Internet training on accessing
health information and resources.

The overall goal of the project is to train parents of children with
special health care needs to advance their skills and abilities in using
the Internet to seek health information and resources. In order to
accomplish this goal, project partners will:

*Develop Internet training curriculum for train-the-trainer sessions with
target audience members involved in the design process.

*Deliver two English and one Spanish six-hour train-the-trainer sessions
for parent coordinators who will attend the workshops with community-based
librarians. The librarians and parent coordinators will serve as a
continuing resource in each region at the conclusion of the project.

*Facilitate and support parent coordinator delivery of 10 community-based
training sessions to share the skills and resources with parents of
Children with Special Health Care Needs.

To learn more about the partnering agencies in this project, please visit
their web pages:

Center for Children with Special Health Needs - http://www.cshcn.org/

Washington State Fathers Network - http://www.fathersnetwork.org/707.html

Washington State Parent to Parent Support Programs-
http://www.arcwa.org/parent2parent.htm
-------------------------------------
Dragonfly, Spring 2003- Volume 34 Number 2
------------------

Dragonfly is the newsletter of the National Network of Libraries of
Medicine, Pacific Northwest Region. Produced by NN/LM PNR, under NLM
Contract N01-LM-1-3516.  Maryanne Blake, Editor, blakema at u.washington.edu.
Michael Boer, Publication Manager, boerm at u.washington.edu.  Dragonfly
is transmitted by e-mail via HLIB-NW and PNRNews.

This and all Dragonfly articles are best viewed on the World Wide Web at:
        http://nnlm.gov/pnr/news/

------------------