Pastoral da Criança

Today, I experienced something very similar to what I experienced in Clinical during my first year in nursing school. One of the clinical rotations  in the nursing program was WIC (women, infants, and children). WIC provides nutrition eduation, supplemental foods, health care, nutrition education, breastfeeding education, for infants, children up to the age of five, and postpartum women of low-income households. One of the main differences between the WIC program and Pastoral da Criança is their funding. The WIC program in the United States is funded by the United States Department of Agriculture. Everyone working for WIC receives a paycheck for his or her work. The people assisting women, infants, and children for Pastoral da Criança are volunteers, and they are funded by the church and donations.

Building in which they host the celebration once a month.

This organization is Catholic Faith-based. The volunteers volunteer twenty-four hours a month or more. They visit the families’ houses once a month with the leader of the organization to check up on the mother, infant, or child. At the home visit they are focusing on nutrition, abuse, hygiene, citizenship, pregnancy, disease prevention, early childhood education, and other issues. The volunteers and leaders try to find ways to improve care for the women, infants, and children. Once a month this organization has a celebration in which they use the time to weigh all of the infants, children, and mothers. At this celebration the organization provides food to motivate the people to go. The weights for the infants and children are charted on a growth chart. The volunteers increase the number of visits if they notice that infants, children, or pregnant women are low weight.

In the visits to the homes the volunteers asked a series of questions. They also try to be persistent on seeing that the answers to the questions are true. The most important thing I noticed as we shadowed the volunteers today into the homes was the trust developed between the families and the volunteers. As soon as we arrived to the homes the children recognized the volunteers. When the volunteers would ask questions that were about the child they would first get on eye level with the child, and direct the question to him or her, and ask for a demonstration. In the visit the volunteers also try to identify safety hazards. The volunteers provide the families with a lot of teaching about pregnancy, child development, and upbringing of children. Issues are brought into attention and together the volunteers and leaders with the family work toward solving the issues. The volunteers gain the knowledge to teach the families in a three-month training session.

At a family visit.

I was impressed by their organization and ability to take initiative to assist people in their community out of the goodness of their heart. This experience added to my previous clinical experience. It gave me the opportunity to meet people who perform similar work as WIC but without government funding. I am grateful to have been able to experience this with people from a different culture.