Family Engagement Department: Support and Partnership

Family engagement team

If you’ve seen fliers around Cook Children’s facilities advertising parent coffee meet-ups, you already know one way in which the Family Engagement Department provides support and outreach for Cook Children’s families. The team does much more in its mission to connect and collaborate with families.

The Family Engagement Department was formerly known as Family Services and is now part of Cook Children’s Experience.

“Family Engagement defines what our department is all about: family voice, participation, support and partnership.” said Vicki Kelley, the Director of the Family Engagement Department. “The name change is meant to emphasize the team’s efforts to connect, collaborate and elevate experiences through customer service, supportive programs, and opportunities to hear parent perspectives and provide opportunities for parent expert volunteers to be involved whenever possible.”

The Parents as Partners side of the department consists of three staff members, including two Experience Specialists who are family members of Cook Children’s patients. The team oversees family advisory councils and support groups, which are led by parents of Cook Children’s patients. You’ll hear more about these programs in the next article of this series.

The Family Engagement department consists of 22 staff members, 16 of which make up the Guest Relations Specialists team. This team of customer service professionals works at information desks, assists visitors with wayfinding, and helps find resources for people staying at the hospital.

Vicki said, “This team is an important part of positive connections at Cook Children’s because they are often the first welcoming face families and visitors see.”

Gina Mcphail, Manager of Family Engagement, leads the Guest Relations Specialists team. She also supervises volunteers who take a hospitality cart laden with toiletries, phone chargers, snacks and other necessities to patient units. The team works closely with Child Life Specialists to determine what families might need when visiting Cook Children's.

“My favorite part of my job is managing my team because they are such a special group of compassionate professionals, always ready to support our patient families.” Gina said. “The bonus aspect of my job is that I am given the opportunity to plan, coordinate, and facilitate parent and family events.”

Along with parent coffee days, Gina and the rest of the team plan events for parents and family members at Cook Children’s, including family movie nights, game nights and watch parties for sports events. Events such as watch parties for the Super Bowl, World Series, and NBA playoffs, allows parents to “experience a little bit of normalcy and eat nachos and not have to think solely about why they are there,” Gina said.

“We have some great turnouts. Not only has it been really special for me, but it’s obvious that families’ love this time together and get a lot out of meeting other families, too.” said Gina, who has worked at Cook Children’s for two years.

“The Child Life Department does a good job of working to normalize health care experiences for children”, Vicki said. “The Family Engagement Department wants to make sure parents and family members have that same level of comfort and opportunities for normalcy. When family members have the opportunity to focus on their own self-care and talk with other family members about their experience, the positive impact extends far beyond that one interaction. The Family Engagement team upholds the Cook Children's culture platform experience standards by helping parents connect with one another and staff and become partners in the care of the patient.”