Heart Strong Families

Building Resilience through
Philanthropic Efforts:

We give from our experiences and leverage our expertise. Since 2015, we've focused on families raising children with complex illness. Strengthening and supporting caregiving families is our priority. We've witnessed the stress of long-term caregiving, maneuvering the healthcare, education, and other systems places on parents with complexly ill children. Recognizing a gap in available support for parents in these circumstances, we persistently develop, fund, and support projects to assist these families.

Read our Impact Report + learn about the impact we’ve created so far.

Our family-focused philanthropy targets:

  • Well-Being of Families

    We support the well-being + personal development of parents in the long haul of raising children with complex illnesses and disabilities. Strong and well-supported parents help to create healthy and resilient families.

  • Practical Family Support

    We support families in the long haul of caregiving. Our practical support currently targets families most impacted by pediatric congenital heart disease + rare pediatric muscular dystrophy with cognitive impairment and like illnesses.

It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on the ship

— ANN LAMOTT

We know this community intimately and are experts in advocating for their needs and educating our culture and systems on how they can be supportive. Donate to help continue this critical work.

Articles and Presentations based on our original research:

1. “Resilience Among Parents of Children with Congenital Heart Disease”*, Delaney, AE, Luo, J, Glazer, S, Lee, CS, Marshall, AC, Thiagarajan, R, & Fu, MR (February 2021), Cardiology 2021: 24th Annual Update on Pediatric and Congenital Cardiovascular Disease, virtual conference, Philadelphia, PA (accepted poster and invited oral abstract)  (Foundation part of poster and presentation recognized)

2. 2021 Father Edward J Gorman Lecture, Alpha Chi Chapter, Sigma Theta Tau International, "From Practice to Research: An Early Program of Research in Exploring Parents and Their Children and Emerging Adults with Congenital Heart Disease"+, Boston College Connell School of Nursing, October 2021 (Delaney, AE & Lindberg, J)

3. “Families’ Report of Financial Burden Associated with Congenital Heart Disease Care”*, Marshall, AC, Delaney, AE, & Thiagaravan, R (2020), Cardiology 2020: Annual Update on Pediatric and Congenital Cardiovascular Disease, Lake Buena Vista, FL Delaney, AE, Fu, MR, McTernan, M, Marshall, AC, Lindberg, J, Thiagarajan, R, Zhou, Z, Luo, J, & Glazer, S (2022) “The associations between resilience and socio-demographic factors in parents who care for their children with congenital heart disease”, International Journal of Nursing Sciences, 9 (3): 321-327.PMID: 35891914 PMCID: PMC9304995 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijnss.2022.06.003.