At Issue: Families and communities face a phenomenon for which there is no precedent or clearly defined path for resolution.

• Life-saving medical advances made in the last decade save more children.
• The state of Georgia has no organized plan in place to track or meet the special life-care needs of its estimated 6,000+ medically fragile pediatric population, or to meet the resource needs of families caring for them.
• Lacking adequate support and resources, biological families find it increasingly difficult to keep their medically fragile children.

The Situation: Families and communities are unprepared to provide the higher, specialized level of care these children require.

• This epidemic is exploding throughout our society without a supporting infrastructure of resources or community-based training programs to address the issue.
• The State of Georgia has no organized plan in place to track or meet the special life-care needs of its estimated 6,000+ medically fragile pediatric population.
• Families or caregivers lack resources to meet their complex care needs. 
• Many give up their children because they feel they have no other choice.
• More than 2,000 medically fragile children are in Georgia's foster system.

The Consequences: Medically fragile children languish forgotten in Georgia hospitals and adult nursing homes because there is no where for them to go.

• Today, approximately 1,200 medically fragile children live for months, and in some instances, for years, in hospitals and adult nursing homes.
• In State custody, medically fragile children are placed in foster homes with families woefully unprepared or properly trained to care for them.
• As a result, medically fragile children often move from foster home to foster home, then back to hospitals or adult nursing facilities, spending years bouncing 'around the system.'
• Children already struggling to cope with health deficits cannot handle the emotional toll their continued displacement causes.
• Resulting behaviorial instabilities make finding permanent homes even more difficult.
• Losing continuity of care deteriorates their already fragile conditions.
• Greater health care issues arise, causing more hospital admissions and escalating direct-care costs.
• These precious, innocent children are at greater risk for fatal outcomes.

Dream House Solution: Specialized training and resources allow children to be placed in more appropriate settings.

• Laura Moore recognized more than a decade ago that Georgia’s medically fragile children and their families need resources that prevent prolonged institutional care.
• Via the Dream House Family for Keeps® Transition Care Program we prepare and enable families to care for these children in their own homes.
• We need help getting the word out to empower communities to keep these families together! 

Benefits and Outcomes: The Dream House unique Transition Care Model yields fewer care mistakes, and has allowed more medically fragile children to remain in stable home settings. Read more...