Mount Auburn Hospital’s CareGroup Parmenter Home Care & Hospice, Inc. has been awarded a $50,000 Grief Reach grant from the New York Life Foundation.
The grant will help to expand CareGroup Parmenter Home Care & Hospice Inc.’s award-winning free child bereavement program, HEART play to the greater Boston area. The program, now in its 21st year uses creative arts to help children and teens cope with the illness or death of a loved one.
“We are grateful to the New York Life Foundation for this grant. This award will enable us to develop community partnerships with agencies in the greater Boston area to serve children and teens affected by the death of a significant person in their lives. We will also be able to support families in our hospice program,” explains President of CareGroup Parmenter Home Care & Hospice, Inc., Denise McQuaide.
“As Director of HEART play for the past years, we are thrilled to be able to offer the transformative and life-changing benefits of the program to more children and teens in the Greater Boston area,” says Jennifer Wiles, LMHC, BC-DMT, Children’s Services Coordinator for CareGroup Parmenter Home Care and Hospice, Inc.
The Grief Reach program was created to help providers overcome barriers to bringing grief support services to youth not served by existing bereavement programs. One hundred and fifty-three Grief Reach grants totaling nearly $5 million have been awarded since the program’s inception in 2011.
Aligned with the mission of CareGroup Parmenter Home Care & Hospice, Inc. childhood bereavement is one of the foundation’s charitable focus areas. Since 2007, the New York Life Foundation has been one of the leading funders of the childhood bereavement field, investing more than $25 million to date in support of grieving children and their families.