Jack and Jill Children's Foundation
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Mission Statement
The Jack and Jill Children's Foundation endeavours to help improve families’ lives by engaging with the child and family to empower them and give them the choice to care for their child at home, often in extraordinary circumstances with extraordinary responsibilities.
About This Cause
OUR VISION An Ireland where every family has the care and support, they need for their child, when and where they need it. OUR MISSION Empowering the families we support to care for their child at home, by funding and delivering nursing, respite and advocacy. OUR SERVICE (for non-medics) Jack and Jill is a nationwide charity that funds and provides up to 100 hours per month of in-home nursing care and respite support to families caring for children, up to the age of six, with severe learning disability associated with complex medical needs. Typically, these children may be tube fed, oxygen dependent, may not sleep, take seizures, need a lot of medication and require around-the-clock care. Understandably, their parents can be exhausted and need a break, which is where Jack and Jill comes in. Our service operates 7 days a week, with no means test, no red tape and no waiting list. Another key part of our service is end-of-life-care for all children up to the age six, irrespective of diagnosis, empowering parents to take their child home to die at this most difficult time. In 2023, Jack and Jill supported 534 families across Ireland with in-home nursing care and respite support. Today, there are 416 families under our care, and 3,040 families have been supported by Jack and Jill since 1997. OUR VALUES 1. Child and family centred care - we are a kind and caring organisation, with the child and family at the centre of everything we do. 2. Compassion - we act with compassion and empathy, always. 3. Community - we believe in standing with, and for, the communities we serve, working together as one team to make a real difference. 4. Courage - we are determined and innovative in giving support, confidence and hope to our families and our team. 5. Integrity - we show integrity by being honest, trustworthy, and respectful. HOW OUR SERVICE WORKS Referrals to Jack and Jill usually come from maternity hospitals, paediatric hospitals, Community Disability Network Teams or via family self-referrals, when it is obvious a child and family need support and may fall under Jack and Jill’s criteria. There is no waiting list, no means test and no red tape with Jack and Jill and this service operates seven days a week, across the country. Jack and Jill employs a core team consisting of two Heads of Nursing, 14 highly qualified and experienced Liaison Nurse Managers, backed up by the Nursing and Family Support Administrators. The nursing team has collectively over 100 years nursing experience between them. They act as case managers, who assess the child and the family’s unique situation and design a bespoke in-home nursing/respite care plan around the needs of the family. We always recognise the parents as the primary carers. We are in their home at their invitation to listen and assess their requirements. Once the child meets our criteria and the parents want to proceed, our Liaison Nurse Managers find and introduce local community nurses and carers to support the family from a pool of approximately 500 community nurses and carers and the charity provides the family with a donation required to cover the cost. Our nursing care support and funding becomes part of the ongoing care regime for the family for up to six years. Every child we support is unique, as is every family situation, therefore our service is bespoke and designed around the family’s requirements, never forgetting the siblings who may also require extra time with their parents. Parents often refer to our service as a ‘lifeline’ or their ‘gift of time’. Once the nurse or carer get to know the child and the family, parents become comfortable around leaving their home, knowing their child is well cared for at home. This is vital time out for the parents, so that they can recharge, take a much-needed rest, meet a friend for a coffee, spend quality time with other children or do some errands – the things some of us take for granted that are simply not feasible for the families under our care.