Mercer
County Children’s Medical Daycare provides a comprehensive mix of healthcare,
childcare, education, and social services under one roof. The mission of the
center is to provide medically fragile children between the ages of birth to
4 with a continuum of medical care prescribed by their doctors in a stimulating
daycare environment.
Before the establishment of the center, young children in Mercer County had
a limited menu of healthcare delivery programs. They primarily received treatment
through the family pediatrician, private nursing, hospitalization, and emergency
room visits. Mercer County Children’s Medical Daycare provides a new pediatric
healthcare delivery option to parents in Mercer County.
The medical daycare program is logistically set up to monitor and administer
treatments for over 34 different medical diagnoses with a 1:3 staff ratio. The
center hosts a dedicated team of pediatric healthcare, early childhood education,
and social services professionals and aides.
By combining pediatric medical administration and childcare development, the
center is capable of serving children with complex medical conditions who are
excluded from regular daycare, and children with chronic health conditions that
would be compromised by untrained staff in regular daycare.
The program specifically addresses the needs of working parents. All working
parents, or parents seeking work, require quality daycare for young children.
Despite this universal need, a significant void existed in the local daycare
community. There was no community daycare provider positioned or equipped to
serve children with special healthcare needs. Mercer County Children’s
Medical Daycare was designed to address the needs of these underserved families.
The hallmark of the medical daycare program is that it also serves families
that struggle with the healthcare management and stabilization of medically
fragile children. Teenage parents, families in crisis, and families at risk
of dissolution have great difficulty rendering adequate care. The center provides
a safe haven for these families by assuming responsibility for health care,
daycare, meals, and transportation. Moreover, the program exponentially reduces
the risk of medical neglect to children who live under circumstances that have
been linked empirically with child maltreatment.
