How Ronald McDonald House Supports DC Families in Need

Discover how Ronald McDonald House supports DC families with a family-centered care approach, offering comfort and support during challenging times.

Our Mission

Ronald McDonald House Charities® of Greater Washington, DC (RMHCDC) provides essential services that remove barriers, strengthen families, and promote healing when children need healthcare.

We care for families with children who are ill or injured, birth to age 21. Our services help families struggling with problems like how to stay near and support a hospitalized child, how to afford staying together in another city while a child is undergoing treatment, or even how to feed their family while away from the comforts and support of home. The families we support often come from underserved populations facing housing and food insecurity. They represent some of the sickest pediatric patients and typically spend extended periods in the hospital. We provide solutions for these and other issues related to easing the hardship of children’s illness on families through core programs that focus on the critical needs of children, celebrating the diversity of the donors who make them possible, staying true to our heritage of responsible stewardship, and operating with accountability and transparency.

Our Vision

RMHCDC is the catalyst to create a world where every family has what they need to ensure the best health outcomes for their children. We continually work to improve and expand our core programs, while also developing new services to address the unique needs of the communities we serve. We don’t do it alone. We rely on you – our donors, volunteers, staff and friends.

Read summary of study showing how RMH plays an important role in family-centered care.

The Problem and Our Purpose

Ronald McDonald House Charities of Greater Washington, DC (RMHCDC) seeks to address the multifaceted challenges faced by families dealing with a child’s illness or injury. These challenges include:

1. Emotional and Psychological Stress: Faced with a child’s illness, families are plunged into a world of fear and worry.
2. Travel-Related Stress: Parents often face the added stress of traveling long distances or through heavy traffic to reach necessary medical care.
3. Financial Strain: The costs of travel, lodging, and meals quickly add up creating financial pressure.
4. Maintaining Family Normalcy: Balancing the needs of the sick child with maintaining normalcy for siblings and managing work commitments is challenging.
5. Isolation: Being far from home leads to isolation from family and friends.
6. Healthcare Access: Many families come from areas with limited healthcare options, and a significant portion of the community we serve lives in poverty, which exacerbates health issues and limits access to necessary care.
7. Rising Costs: Inflation has increased the cost of food and transportation, further straining family finances.

RMHCDC addresses the challenge of supporting families with a sick child through a comprehensive, family-centered care approach. Recognizing that a child’s illness impacts the entire family, RMHCDC involves families in the healthcare process to make informed decisions alongside healthcare providers. This holistic approach aims to improve various outcomes such as psychosocial outcomes, clinical outcomes, resource distribution, and patient and family satisfaction.

We believe that when a child is sick, the entire family needs comfort and support. We believe that a home is more than four walls and a roof over your head – it is the intangible magic that transpires in moments shared together. We believe in building a global community that finds strength, hope and courage in embracing healing as a joyous experience. Please give today to help even more families stay close through the biggest challenge of their lives. Together, we can do big things!

RMHCDC Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Statement

At RMHCDC, we understand that no one person’s experience is the same, nor is any one person’s experience more valuable than another’s.

We actively listen and strive for justice and fairness in our decision making. We believe it is our differences that ultimately make us better able to support our families and each other. It is our individual journey through life that calls us all to be compassionate and have empathy for others.

We appreciate human complexity and acknowledge our varied experience, physical abilities, race, sexual orientation, religion, gender identity, and socio-economic factors.

As an organization, we care about other and we live by our core values of Integrity, Compassion, Accountability, Respect, and Excellence.

Keyword: Ronald McDonald House, DC families, family-centered care, support, healthcare

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