CARE House, Corewell Health Partnership Receives New Grant Funding

As part of $13.7 million in new grants toward impact areas of health, the Michigan Health Endowment Fund recently announced a $150,000 grant to a collaborative led by CARE House of Oakland County to fund an initial Child Abuse Medical Response Collaborative, in partnership with Corewell Health Children’s in Southeast Michigan.

Under this partnership, CARE House will work with physicians to gather anonymous data from medical exams of children under 18 who are survivors of abuse, with the goal of creating a first-of-its-kind process and standard of care if a child needs a medical exam as part of an abuse investigation. This partnership will evaluate how the current system can be improved for children and their families.

“Abuse doesn’t always have signs or symptoms. Sometimes a medical exam is the only way to know what happened. But there is no national model to provide clear direction on when, how or where that should happen. We want that fact to change,” said Blythe Tyler, CARE House CEO. “We want to help create a framework that keeps kids out of emergency rooms who don’t need to be there.”

“This program will ultimately help kids who have survived physical abuse when they are in need of medical attention, without causing any more trauma,” said Matthew Denenberg, M.D., chief of pediatrics at Corewell Health’s Children’s  and a pediatric emergency medicine specialist. “Our physicians appreciate being a part of the team that develops the best practices for treating the children in our community and beyond.”

The Michigan Health Endowment Fund’s 2024 Community Health & Capacity Building Initiative supports nonprofits and collaborative partnerships to implement community-driven initiatives and build important capacity to help health-focused organizations achieve their missions.