Continuing its commitment to helping provide children with cancer and blood disorders comfort and tools that help them cope with mental and emotional stresses of diagnosis and treatment, The Aflac Foundation Inc. this week donated $1.5 million to the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Earmarked for family support services, this year’s annual donation will help address patient mental and emotional well-being throughout 2023 and brings Aflac’s funding support of the pediatric cancer and blood disorders cause to over $166 million since 1995.
“Aflac continues to provide funding for treatment and research, but we also understand that children need more than medicine when going through a medical crisis,” said Kathelen Amos, president of The Aflac Foundation Inc. “For every child with a cancer or blood disorder diagnosis, there is a family in crisis. The needs and concerns of the parents and siblings include, but are not limited to, those directly concerning the patient. We are pleased to help fund the ever-increasing array of holistic and support services that Children’s offers to the patients and families of the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center.”
Aflac’s donation will help fund the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center’s 35-person Family Support Team, which includes social workers, child life specialists, non-denominational chaplains and music therapists who work in tandem with medical staff to provide therapeutic activities, positive distractions and social support for both patients and families. Major medical insurance does not typically cover family support services, leaving hospitals dependent on philanthropic support to continue the program that cost the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center $2.5 million in 2021. In the same year, Family Support Team members provided services to a majority of the more than 8,000 children receiving care at the Center, many giving support to their families, as…
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