Family Resource Center/Library
Days and Hours: Monday through Friday, 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Evening and weekend volunteer services from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm.
Contact Us: (650) 497-8102
Fax: (650) 498-2455
Overview
The Family Resource Center (FRC) provides hospital patients, their families and staff with access to a wide variety of information about child and maternal health and well-being. The FRC collection includes books and periodicals on a variety of topics including disease-specific information, coping with chronic illness and hospitalization, parenting skills and child development. The Family Resource Center also maintains a large collection of recreational reading materials, movies, CDs and audio books.Access to information continues to be the single most important need identified by patients and family members who are having to cope with an illness or hospitalization. In addition, patients themselves need information and resources in order to understand how their bodies work, cope with the stress of hospitalization or learn how to live with a life-altering illness.
Therefore, the purpose of the Family Resource Center is to provide patients, their families and the community access to information and resources for and about their health and well-being. Our aim is to augment the efforts of the health care team by:
- Providing scientifically-based medical information and developmentally-appropriate health resources
- Fostering understanding of pediatric and maternal health medical issues
- Assisting patients and families in coping with illness and hospitalization
- Encouraging communication between patients, their families and health care professionals
- Contributing to a healing environment through reading, storytelling and other recreational media
Services
- A Consumer Health and Medical Collection of resources on health care issues that pertain to maternal and child health. Topics range from coping with chronic illness and hospitalization to parenting skills and child development. The collection includes books and periodicals, and you can find what you are looking for through our online catalog. The collection also includes access to online databases, such as MedLine.
- A Recreational Collection of books, CDs, audio books and movies for the enjoyment of patients and their family members. The collection includes both fiction and nonfiction works for children from infancy to young adulthood. You can search for items in our online catalog.
- Patient/Family Research Assistance services and resources are available to assist patients and family members. A staff person is available to facilitate the use of FRC materials and encourage active participation of patients and families in the educational process. In addition, assistance is provided to other health care professionals in the development and provision of patient and family education.
- An Information Kiosk located on the first floor of the hospital provides patients and families visiting our outpatient clinics with access to hospital information and patient education materials regarding parenting, health and wellness.
- Storyline at 49-STORY (497-8679) offers an opportunity for children to call in and hear a read-aloud story. Stories change twice weekly.
- Volunteer Bedside and Clinic Programs in which volunteers bring the Family Resource Center directly to inpatients at bedside each evening and to outpatients mornings and afternoons in the Clinic waiting rooms. These programs combine eager young readers, listeners and viewers with talented volunteers who read and tell stories and distribute movies.
- Books Alive Program in which volunteers bring laptops bedside to patients to provide an interactive reading experience.
- Closed Circuit TV broadcasts television programming chosen especially for the educational and entertainment needs of patients and families. A TV guide is available on the unit or in the Library.
Additional Information
Everyone is welcome to use the Family Resource Center/Library. Check-out privileges are reserved for patients, their families, employees and volunteers of Lucile Packard Children's Hospital.The Family Resource Center relies on contributions from the community to provide resources for our patients and families here at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. If you would like to contribute to this program, please follow this link and fill in "Family Resource Center/Library" in the gift designation box. We also accept donations of recreational and educational books, CDs and DVDs.
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