Pediatric Palliative Care by HospiceCare in The Berkshires

12/22/2021

Our Pediatric Palliative Care by HospiceCare in The Berkshires (PPC) team has had a very busy year serving 41 children and their families in Berkshire County. People often say to our team “you must be angels” for working with medically fragile children. Honestly, we are the ones that feel blessed focusing on quality of life with these children and families. Our PPC kids and families are resilient, strong and beautiful.

Checkout our staff and family fun activities in 2021. We are looking forward to another year with these special children and hope to continue growing this program.

09/30/2021

Last week several of our HospiceCare in The Berkshires, Inc. Pediatric Palliative Care program staff members participated in a rally to support CHILDHOOD CANCER AWARENESS month at Park Square in Pittsfield. This event was organized by two mothers from our program who are dedicated to raising awareness related to the lack of funding to research childhood cancers and find a cure.

Currently, 43 children per day are diagnosed with cancer and it is the leading killer of children by disease with 2,000 kids under age nineteen dying each year.

Please help us in raising awareness about Childhood Cancer and the need for research funding.

Pictured are HCiB staff members - Simon Dembitzer (Nurse) and Kate Cimini (Art Therapist) and her son Mae, as well as Sue Sacco (Massage Therapist).

05/18/2021

There were a few families that could not make the Baby Animals visit in person so we brought the experience to them on Zoom. Technology can sometimes be a wonderful thing!

05/18/2021

Through the generosity of the Frank and Rosemarie Lovieno Caringfor ChildrenFoundation, the families and children in the Pediatric Palliative Care by HospiceCare in The Berkshires program visited the baby animals at Hancock Shaker Village in Richmond MA.

In addition to providing consultative nursing, social work, spiritual care, art, music and massage therapies, our program focuses on providing opportunities for children and families to simply enjoy life.

What better activity is there than going to a farm to meet baby animals with your family? Stay tuned for our next adventure!

05/14/2021

Our Pediatric Palliative Care team went on a field trip this week. The team went to a lovely garden area next to a local chocolate lovers store. In this beautiful setting on a warm spring day the team worked hard to develop a mission and vision statement for the Pediatric Palliative Care program. This is part of a larger project to focus this year on family engagement. The team is very invested in finding ways to partner with families to enhance the well being of the children and families we serve as a program of HospiceCare in The Berkshires, Inc. and Berkshire Healthcare.

04/02/2021

01/18/2021

All Berkshire Healthcare Skilled Nursing affiliates have been provided the 1st round of the COVID-19 vaccine to staff and residents and the 2nd rounds are scheduled and beginning this week. The clinics have been very organized and have being going well.

10/09/2020

This beautiful young lady is Kaydance, our Pediatric Palliative Care (PPC) program friend. Kaydance uses a wheelchair and until recently she was unable to do many things outside of her home due to a lack of an appropriate handicapped accessible vehicle. While she had access to a cabulance for school and medical appointments, she did not have transportation for anything else including family events. Kaydance was essentially housebound due to this circumstance.

Her loving parents bought a van that needed extensive repairs to make it safe for Kaydance. PPC Social Worker Chantal Levin, did a lot of research and found two awesome resources. The Knights of Columbus and Bridget’s Brigade were able to fund the much needed repairs! The smiles on Kaydance and her parent’s faces says it all. They want to send a HUGE thank you to everyone involved in making such a difference in the quality of Kaydance’s life.

10/08/2020

Here is our PPC friend Abby, another one of our pumpkin artists extraordinaire!

10/08/2020

Mr. Pumpkin, aka volunteer Bob Sykes, is shown here delivering pumpkins to excited kiddos!

10/08/2020

Fall is here and the foliage is looking great. Our volunteer extraordinaire, Bob Sykes and his lovely wife, delivered 80 pumpkins and paint kits. We purchased them for the 36 children and siblings in our Pediatric Palliative Care (PPC) program this week.

Our first picture came in from our friend Liam and his family. They get very creative for Halloween every year. Also below is a picture from last Halloween. We can’t wait to see what Liam has for a costume this year!

Liam has many friends on the PPC team as he benefits from social work, nursing, music therapy and massage therapy. Thank you Liam for bringing a smile to everyone who meets you.