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Strengthening Community Through Access to Care

Community leaders in Washington, DC founded Children’s National Hospital with a vision to improve the health and well-being of all children.

Expanded primary care, especially in neighborhoods with high poverty rates, means more kids have access to the resources they need to be healthy and succeed.

With your support, we’ll add specialty services, including asthma care and mental health care. We will refer families to community resources that address social determinants of health, such as food insecurity, unstable home life and lack of transportation.

As the premier provider of pediatric care in our region, we’re proud to build on our legacy of exceptional care for our community.

Contact Meredith Chipman at [email protected] to learn more and lead the way. 

Key’Monie’s Story

Key’Monie, age 8, has been a patient at our hospital since she was a newborn. Her mom Kristina was also a Children’s National patient. She says, “Children’s National has brought the best possible pediatric care to our neighborhood, and that means a lot.”

Read more stories

Bring Care Beyond the Hospital

Expand K-12 Programming and Nurse Training

We will create opportunities within schools to enhance collaboration and increase access to mental and behavioral health care. We must train advocates who see kids every day and serve as “first responders.” Telemedicine will deliver services to more students. We’ll expand our training of nurses — who serve nearly 200 DC public and charter schools — to provide mental health screenings and referrals.

Coordinate with Early Childhood Centers

We will empower early childhood professionals to test and adapt strategies that improve children’s mental health and well-being. We’ll launch a targeted preschool initiative, Unstuck and On Target. It will help kids develop critical executive function skills to succeed in school and life.

Establish the Mental Health Policy Lab

We will create this new think tank within the Child Health Advocacy Institute. It will elevate our work to tackle complex issues related to mental health care and create systemic, sustainable, evidence-based policies and change.

“Children don't grow up in isolation. Their health is impacted by their neighborhood, education and relationships they have with their family. Philanthropy has been so helpful – really, essential – in helping us to develop support and services for families to help them address the things that may get in the way of good health.”
– Lee Beers, M.D., Medical Director, Community Health and Advocacy
“Emergencies see no color, no income, no sort of boundaries. If a child has an accident, we are the number one stop in Washington, DC. There is no other large pediatric emergency department such as ours. So we tend to capture the essence of our community broadly across income brackets, races, languages and beyond.”
– Joelle Simpson, M.D., Division Chief, Emergency Medicine, Medical Director, Emergency Preparedness