Current Initiatives:  We partner with trusted non-profits to expand our impact.

1. Providing consistent prenatal triage for pregnant women arriving at the Respite Center in McAllen, Texas, through a contract with Holy Family Birth Center for midwifery support. This would not be possible without our partnership with Every Mother Counts in this effort. Community for Children also provides nursing supplies for postpartum mothers.

2. Partnering with Migrant Clinician Network, we connect pregnant mothers with critically needed follow-up prenatal care in federally qualified health centers across the country.

3. Helping to create and maintain the first national network of pediatricians committed to serving immigrant children with serious medical conditions: Pedi SCAN (Specialty Care Access Network) has seventy-five pediatricians in communities receiving the most immigrant families across the country. This is the result of years of collaboration with faculty at Stanford University School of Medicine, Baylor/Texas Children’s University, and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine. Migrant Clinician Network provides the hub of medical care coordinators that supports this effort.

4. Addressing Barriers to Care: Community for Children provides funds to Migrant Clinician Network to cover transportation needs for immigrant mothers and children to ensure they can go to their first appointment. Inspired by our work, Uber and Save the Children are now contributing to this effort.  We also provide the co-pay if needed for this first evaluation.  Once established into care in a clinic near the family, the local clinic assists the families with accessing financial support.

5. Purchasing needed prescription medications, over the counter medications, diapers and other supplies for families waiting in Mexico for permission to apply for asylum in our country. We achieve this work through our collaboration with Ayundandoles de Triunfar in Matamoros, Mexico.

6. Supporting La Posada Providencia, a humanitarian long-term immigrant shelter in San Benito, Texas, which hosts those unaccompanied immigrant children who have recently turned 18 years old and thus have aged out of the Office of Refugee Resettlement children’s program. The young people may stay for a month or more while they find sponsors and families.

7. Supporting Loaves and Fishes, a humanitarian immigrant shelter in Harlingen, Texas, serving immigrant and homeless families.

Past Initiatives

• Organized volunteer medical teams for the Respite Center in McAllen, Texas. This work began in 2014 when the first wave of immigrant families arrived at the southern border and continued until COVID hit in 2020.
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• Brought leaders to the border to bear witness. Beginning in 2014, Community for Children helped organize and lead groups of leaders, including physicians, politicians, teachers, and other thought leaders to bear witness to the suffering of migrating families.  This helped influence national advocacy efforts supporting children and families.
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• Co-Produced Sheltering Hope: Migrant Families on the Southern Border, a brief documentary highlighting the courageous and compassionate work of humanitarian shelters from San Diego to Brownsville, Texas.
   Generous donations and grants helped make this work possible.

   

  Future Initiatives:

   

• We strive to be a Catalyst for Positive Change:

   

  Inspiring and Supporting the next generation of physician-leaders: Alumnae from the Community for Children International Elective are applying for NIH funding to bring Community for Children Physician Advocates together to explore unidentified critical gaps in care that exist for immigrant children and families, and to strategize how best to address these challenges.  Community for Children will target fundraising to address these newly identified challenges.