County CYF Receives Grant to Aid Needy Families

Armstrong County Children, Youth & Family (CYF) Services recently received a grant from Cribs for Kids National Infant Safe Sleep Initiative that will enable the organization to provide safe sleep education to parents and caregivers.

A Safe Sleep Survival Kit will also be supplied as part of the grant, comprised of more than seven items - including a sleep massage, baby book and educational DVD material -to families who could not, otherwise, afford safe sleeping environments for their infants.

Armstrong County CYF Administrator Dennis Demangone said Armstrong is one of 24 recipients of the 2015 Cribs for Kids Mini-Grant Program, sponsored by the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

“This grant will allow us to improve sleeping arrangements for infants from families that are struggling financially to safely meet the needs of their children,” Demangone said.

Each kit retails for about $80 according to the organization’s website.

CYF Services is the public child welfare agency serving the residents of the county. It is administered by county government and supervised by the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services.

In Fiscal Year 2013-2014, the agency provided services to 660 families (1,393 children).

Cribs for Kids, headquartered in Pittsburgh since 1998, is an infant safe-sleep education program that helps to reduce the risk of injury and death of infants due to unsafe sleep environments.

According to Founder and Executive Director Judith Bannon, hospitals across the United States - including UPMC Mercy and Magee Women’s Hospital in Pittsburgh and UPMC Northwest in Venango County - are certified “sleep safe.”

In 2009 a study conducted by Dr. Rachel Moon at the Children’s National Medical Center found that in magazines targeting women of childbearing age, more than one-third showed babies in unsafe sleep positions and more than two thirds showed babies in unsafe sleep environments.

 

In addition to safety approved cribs, Cribs for Kids partners throughout the country provide educational materials regarding ‘safe sleeping’ for infants as well as other safety tips to protect babies from sleep-related deaths, including asphyxia, suffocation and SIDS.

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