Introduction

[Victoria Vrana]

Rebecca,

Thanks for joining Youthlearn!  I look forward to hearing more about the
Healing Communities project. I heard about a similar project at a one-day
conference at the Benton Foundation last summer.  They mobilized high school
students to wire hospitals to help put hospitalized children online. The
teens then became email penpals with various ill children. I believe this
took place in the south and was a TIIAP/TOP funded project.  You can look up
funded TOP projects on their Web site:
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/otiahome/top/index.html

Does anyone else know of similar projects for Rebecca?  Rebecca, I'd be very
interested in the list of children's needs that you assess once it's
finished.

Welcome!

Victoria

-----Original Message-----
From: Youthlearn Discussion Forum
[mailto:YOUTHLEARN at LISTSERV.MORINO.ORG]On Behalf Of Foundation TempbFo
(Rebecca Brown) (Foundation TempbFo)
Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2000 12:05 PM
To: YOUTHLEARN at LISTSERV.MORINO.ORG
Subject: Introduction

<p>Hi all!
   My name is Rebecca Brown.  I am a Project Assistant working at Inova
Health System, in Fairfax, Virginia.  Inova is a nonprofit, community health
care organization, which operates throughout the D.C. Metropolitan area. I
am working specifically on a project called "Healing Communities: Technology
for Hospitalized Children."
    This project is an attempt to keep hospitalized children connected to
their home and school communities by keeping them in touch with their
school, teachers, classmates and friends through the appropriate use of
technology.  The project will also allow these children to create their own
communities within hospital walls and among children with similar medical
issues whether in the hospital or at home.  These children, who are out of
their communities and schools for extended periods of time, often fall
behind both academically and socially.  The project will target middle
school through high school aged children who are hospitalized repeatedly or
for lengthy periods of time.  Currently we are working to develop a list of
these children't specific needs as well as a pool of information on the
available technolgoy and any current projects of this type.
   As part of my work with the project I am researching issues that we
believe are relevant to the project.  One of these is the digital divide.
Community technology projects, especially after school ones for youth, are
an essential part of the effort to bridge this divide.  I learned of this
listserv from a digital divide listserv run by the Benton Foundation.  I
hope to gain from this list a broader knowledge of after-school technology
programs and perhaps some ideas that can be applied to our program helping
hospitalized children.  Thanks for your time!

Rebecca Brown
Project Assistant
Inova Health System Foundation
Tempb.foundation at inova.com