The Aging Out Crisis

Our Mission

Elizabeth Seton Children’s Center is the largest, specialty, long-term care center for children with complex medical needs and is the national leader in caring for this unique population. Our mission is to give these children the chance to learn, live, thrive and safely become adults. We do this by providing the entire range of what they need: state-of-the-art medical care, education, rehabilitation, social activities, deeply inclusive partnerships with their families and a true sense of dignity and love. There is no place in the United States with the size, success and approach like ours. We have proudly been recognized as a pioneer in helping these underserved children. Yet urgent needs remain.

Our Children

The children we serve need help with the most basic daily functions. Their medical conditions are chronic, complicated and extremely limiting on their lives. Most of them are unable to walk and many depend on technology in order to be able to eat, breathe or communicate. Their conditions include genetic disorders, traumatic injuries and childhood diseases. They have extraordinary needs, but also tremendous determination, spirit and the will to experience the fullness of life.

The Challenge

Our children’s center serves 169 children from infancy to young adulthood. We are blessed to live in a time in which modern advances in medical care allow more of our kids to thrive past their childhood and teenage years than ever before. However, pediatric placement ends at age 21. For most, aging out means transferring to a geriatric nursing home that is unsuited to provide the around-the-clock, highly specialized medical and emotional care that our young adults require and deserve.

The Urgency

Across the United States, there are 3 million children and young adults that are medically fragile increasing at a rate of 5 percent per year. In New York State, there are an estimated an estimated 37,000 children and young adults with medical fragility ages birth to 35.

The lack of appropriate care places these young adults at risk and their families in agonizing turmoil; 30 percent of young adults who left our care have died in just over a year.

Our health care system has not caught up to meet the needs of this growing population. Our young adult center aims to change that. By the end of 2024, 84 residents of the children’s center will be eligible to move into this new home.

Our Young Adult Center

Our young adult center will be the first of its kind, freestanding facility designed to care for young adults with complex medical needs. Located in White Plains, NY, adjacent to our Elizabeth Seton Children’s Rehabilitation Center and Elizabeth Seton Children’s School, it is intended to be a permanent extension of our mission-centric programming – expanding both the footprint and continuum of our long-term care model.

Our $118 million, 96-bed, nursing home will be specially designed with our young adults’ needs and interests in mind. Here, we will offer an array of services: 24-hour skilled nursing, respiratory and medical care, rehabilitation therapies, palliative care, social work, spiritual care, nutrition, on-site specialty clinics and more. We will offer social engagement, sensory-enhancing activities, physical education and expressive movement, as well as hands-on experiences in technology, the arts and music, life skills, cooking and horticulture.

This pioneering facility will be an international model and research hub for innovative best practices in caring for young adults who have survived their childhood illnesses – reaching adulthood for the first time in history.

For those who want to have an impact on a child’s life and create a future filled with hope and possibilities, this is the place to give.