Supporting Families with Sick Infants and Toddlers with Montgomery County Infants and Toddlers Program (MCITP)
Remember how stressful it was to go grocery shopping during the pandemic? Waiting in line, masking, social distancing, and hunting for essentials like Clorox wipes or Purell to keep your family safe. Wiping down groceries, dealing with diaper shortages. Now, imagine being the parent of a premature infant just discharged after a 3-month NICU stay, a toddler undergoing chemotherapy, or a baby recovering from major cardiac surgery. You can’t work because you need to care for your medically fragile child, so money is tight. You have to feed your family but can’t leave your child with anyone, and you’re terrified to take them out for fear of COVID exposure.
During this time, nurses from the Montgomery County Infants and Toddlers Program (MCITP) heard about a program that delivered food to families in need. We were given Dave Silbert’s contact information and told to reach out. Many times during the pandemic, we encountered families facing numerous challenges, and getting food or diapers was a huge struggle. It was amazing to email Dave, explain the situation, and have him say, “Sure, we can help.” Not only was food delivered, but also cleaning supplies and diapers, which were hard to find.
In the years since the pandemic, Dave and his team have continued to help our families. We still turn to Dave with our most challenging situations, and he has never said no. We’ve reached out for special requests during holidays, for toys for children, and for diapers when a mom has just used her last one. This incredible program has evolved to meet the community’s needs and continues to support our families in impressive ways.
For those unfamiliar with our program, MCITP provides early intervention services to assist families in addressing their children’s developmental and special needs. These services are provided at no cost in a family-centered practice model, where families work with service providers to learn skills and strategies to support their children’s development.
The nurses often work with families who have medically complex children, meeting them at a time of great vulnerability. These parents are often exhausted, just learning about their child’s diagnosis, or recovering from a long hospital stay. The stress can be profound as they learn to manage their child’s complex medical needs. Our goal is to provide immediate support to relieve stress and help families get organized to cope with their new normal. Eventually, we aim for families to learn the skills needed to access resources and help themselves, but that comes later when they are less overwhelmed.
We support all our families by helping them learn about and access community resources to meet their basic needs. This is crucial because it’s hard to focus on supporting your child’s development if you don’t have enough food or are worried about paying rent or buying a warm coat for your older child. One of the first questions we ask families is “do you have enough food for your family”?. We frequently refer them to SWE and coach them through the process of getting an appointment to shop at the food pantry or figuring out how to get there without a car.
We are fortunate to have SWE in our community and are grateful for Dave and his team, who always help with great compassion, supporting the families in the Infants and Toddlers Program.
