HEAL (Help Endure a Loss): Support For the Loss Of a Child
Losing a child is one of the most devastating tragedies that can happen to a family. Parents preparing for a lifetime of happiness with their child must now, instead, prepare to cope with life-changing events surrounding their baby. With an unexpected illness or complication, pregnancy loss, stillbirth, or infant death comes feelings of helplessness, shock, numbness, and anger. Frequently parents struggle with their pain alone, unaware of available resources and support.
Atrium Medical Center’s innovative HEAL (Help Endure a Loss) program assures caring, appropriate, and accessible services to families in crisis due to an unanticipated outcome for their baby. All HEAL services are free of charge and available to any family who needs them. HEAL works to provide emotional support while attending to the logistics of memorializing a child.
HEAL Services
- Bereavement counseling and support. HEAL staff provide counseling and support, and connect families to local funeral homes, cemeteries and other donors who often cover the costs of final arrangements, if needed.
- A better experience for patients and families. HEALing Together Support Groups, the Walk to Remember, and HEAL Memory Tree Lighting enable families to share and remember their child publicly. The HEAL Memory Garden on Atrium’s campus memorializes children gone too soon.
- Outreach to our communities. HEAL staff are actively involved in safe sleep programs to prevent SIDS and Sudden Unexplained Infant Death, as well as helping pregnant women learn how to “count the kicks” to monitor baby’s health in the third trimester.
Greatest Need: Increase the Endowment To Ensure Ongoing Care
With no revenue source to support it, HEAL needs a consistent, permanent source of income to ensure its valuable work is able to be sustained perpetually.
In these days of exceedingly tight hospital budgets, the program is in constant jeopardy of being reduced or eliminated. HEAL runs on a limited budget, with the need to expand. It relies on part-time nurses trained in bereavement support, volunteers with grief support experience, and generous community members who make in-kind donations. HEAL team members solicit donations and coordinate logistics. Many businesses generously support groups and events for grieving families. Salaries, supplies, and other operating expenses are kept to a minimum.
The HEAL endowment is essential to continue bringing families together to share their pain and joy. Endowment growth will provide a secure source of funding for all of these vital services. Your gift to the HEAL endowment will help to ensure struggling families find the invaluable support they need for years to come.
Give Now
Click here to download a printable HEAL Memorial Order Form. Deadlines for 2024 pavers are May 1 and September 1.