(Chicago)—The Chicago-based Children's Place Association is now accepting applications from college-level students to tutor HIV/AIDS-affected elementary school kids in Humboldt Park.

The non-profit Children's Place Association needs volunteer tutors with a minimum of a high-school diploma to help teach academic basics—reading, writing, and math—to elementary grade students one-night per week during the fall and/or spring semesters.

Volunteer tutors, who may be eligible for college credit hours through their university, will instruct a single child during the one-hour and half hour weekly session.

The Children's Place Association—Chicago's preeminent provider of HIV/AIDS care to children and families—is providing the tutoring as part of its new “Life Long Families” program.

The program—the only of its kind in Illinois—helps children of HIV/AIDS-infected and terminally-ill parents secure their future through legal guardianship, will preparation, mental health care, tutoring assistance, and other care.

Currently, seven DePaul University students are tutoring seven Humboldt Park elementary kids, but another 25 are on a tutoring waiting list, according The Children's Place Association President, Cathy Krieger.

“We have 25 eager kids eager to learn,” said Krieger, “now we just need 25 more tutors eager to teach.”

For more information, interested tutor candidates may contact The Children's Place Association's Volunteer Coordinator, Latrice Freeny, at 773-826-1230 or lfreeny@childrens-place.org.

An innovative partnership is enabling The Children's Place Association to provide support services tailored to HIV/AIDS-affected adolescents and their families.

Working collaboratively with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), The Children's Place will assume leadership of the Permanency and Support Services to Women, Children and Youth with HIV Project, which is designed to help individuals cope with adolescence -- and the potential stigma and other social burdens faced by people living with HIV/AIDS.

Funded by the Illinois Department of Public Health, the project is based at the DCFS Chicago site.

“This project helps build community support for families that are living with HIV and reduces the isolation that people living with HIV too often encounter,” said Cathy Krieger, president/CEO of The Children's Place. “We're helping parents and kids who aren't equipped to handle the situation and have few role models.”

Despite progress in battling HIV/AIDS, the disease remains a pressing issue affecting Chicago children and their families. The Children's Place, located on Chicago's west side, is a not-for-profit residence and family center that serves about 350 low-income HIV/AIDS affected or infected Chicago children annually, providing them with housing, healthcare, educational and emotional support.

Administering the DCFS project will allow The Children's Place to expand its existing suite of vital support services, which includes child care, mental health care, foster care, case management, and parent-school programs. With the project, The Children's Place will additionally reach four target groups with distinct programming: HIV-positive children ages 9-13 and ages 14-18, parents or caregivers of these children, and healthy siblings of these children.

While the children benefit from this opportunity to speak openly with others in a safe environment, the parents benefit in a perhaps less obvious but equally compelling way.

Many parents of HIV-affected children did not expect their children to live to adolescence, due to limited treatment options, according to Krieger. But today's pharmaceutical options are extending lives – and leaving parents in “uncharted territory” for helping infected kids struggle with growing up and facing physical and psychosocial issues not confronted by their healthy peers, she said.

“As HIV-positive kids grow, they face adolescent issues compounded by questions or anger about HIV. It's ‘adolescence with a bang,'” she says.

Project participation entails attending 16 two-hour sessions that address aspects of mastering adolescence while keeping HIV-affected children healthy and self-confident. Specific sessions, led by The Children's Place staff and health professionals who are leaders in their fields, explore such factors as everyday living with HIV, self-care, self-respect and empowerment, legal issues, and the impact of HIV on communications with family, friends and others.

All four target groups meet together to share a meal before breaking apart to discuss issues with their peers. According to a 2004 evaluation study of The Children's Place funded by the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, the learning and psychological support that the facility provides to youngsters affected by HIV/AIDS is “unduplicated in the most financially exclusive pre-schools.” Furthermore, its learning program “exceeds best practices in quality and number.”

A nationally recognized leader in pediatric AIDS care, The Children's Place Association provides award-winning programs and services such as a 10-bed residential center with 24-hour medical care; a state-of-the-art early learning facility, family support services including psychotherapy and in-home respite care; a summer day camp; and a foster/adoptive program for children whose parents can no longer care for them due to HIV/AIDS.

7 July
2003

(Chicago) – Nearly 60 Chicago-area HIV/AIDS-affected preschool children will continue to receive nursing care, early childhood education, mental health counseling care and nutrition services with Governor Blagojevich’s just signed new state budget.

"The HIV/AIDS-infected children require their medication be dispensed and monitored with the kind of specialized care that only a nurse can provide,” said Cathy Krieger, President of The Children’s Place. “The Governor’s approval of the state budget will maintain the critical nursing care they currently receive."

The Children’s Place program, supported by a $780,000 Illinois Department of Human Services (DHS) budget line item and $260,000 in other funding, cares and educates 11 HIV/AIDS-infected children who require medication and monitoring, 33 children of 20 sick mothers who are too ill to care for them full-time, and 10 children of other HIV/AIDS-infected guardian relatives. Due to the state budget shortfall, the early childhood education and medical day care program—the only one of its kind in Illinois—had originally been slated for elimination.

In his state budget address, Gov. Rod Blagojevich said, “…We must not sacrifice our commitment to educating our children, to providing healthcare for those who need it….”

“The Governor’s final budget restores the early childhood education, food and nutrition, and medical care funding for these children and we are grateful to Governor Blagojevich,” said Krieger.

Leading the effort to restore the program budget elimination were State Senators Miguel del Valle, Iris Martinez (D-Chicago), State Representatives Cynthia Soto, Toni Berrios, Sara Feigenholtz, and Art Turner (D-Chicago) and Angelo “Skip” Saviano (R-Elmwood Park).

“We deeply appreciate the determined and successful fight waged to save the program by these legislative heroes,” said Krieger.

The Children’s Place, a 10-year-old, nationally recognized charitable organization that cares for HIV/AIDS-affected children and their families, provides more than traditional child-care through its Early Childhood program. The facility addresses medical care, mental health, housing, speech and occupational therapy and respite.