This is a part of the podcast series from the Model Systems Knowledge Translation Center on Returning to School After Burn Injury. Haig Yenikomshian discusses how community partners help with getting kids back to school. 

Getting our kids back to school, we really work together with the community foundations. I think particularly in Los Angeles, I'm thinking of the Alisa Ann Ruch Burn Foundation and the Children's Burn Foundation. 

And what we do is we bring them in early when these kids are patients here, they get to know these foundations. And these foundations help them get back to school. They help them go to summer camp. They help them understand the challenges that they're gonna face and connect them with peer supporters who are in their age group.

In the case of Julian, Cindy Rutter worked with the Alisa Ann Ruch Burn Foundation as a burn survivor volunteer. She’s specialist trained in school reentry. And so we got her in early to help with Julian in the inpatient setting, as well as the transition to the outpatient setting. She worked with Julian and his mother, but also worked with the school to prepare them to bring a burn survivor back to school.

Visit https://msktc.org/burn and get the answers you need from experts who conduct innovative and high-quality research, provide patient care, and work to improve the health and overall quality of life for people with burn injury. That’s https://msktc.org/burn.