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Audience: Parents and caregivers, support staff, and educators of children with disabilities and complex health care needs of all ages.

The Family Care Enhancement Project places Parent Resource Coordinators (PRCs) from diverse backgrounds in clinics and at organizations to provide information and support to families who have children with disabilities and complex health care needs.

PRCs are parents or family members of children with complex health care needs or disabilities. They have specialized training and share lived experience with the families they support. They act as community health workers, linking families to the services and support they need.

Our PRCs help:
• Connect families to community resources.
• Empower families to advocate for their child.
• Navigate across medical, education, and community services.
• Educate and mentor families on their rights.
• Partner with families and professionals to enhance culturally competent family-centered care.

Sarah Swanson, MPH, is an Assistant Professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Nebraska's University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities at the Munroe-Meyer Institute. She also is the program director for MMI’s Family Care Enhancement Project, which places Parent Resource Coordinators in medical clinics across the state. The Family Care Enhancement Project, funded in part by Nebraska's UCEDD, is located at UNMC's Munroe-Meyer Institute.

Swanson is the primary investigator over many projects that offer services and supports to children with disabilities and special health care needs and their families. She also serves on many state leadership teams and advisories to improve access and promote activities that benefit children with disabilities and their families.

Kim Falk has worked at Munroe-Meyer Institute for more than 13 years. She started as a Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and Related Disabilities trainee and took her personal experience as a parent of a child with a disability to help support other families with additional opportunity and programs at MMI.

Falk previously developed the Respite Employer Engagement initiative through a pilot project, and from 2015 to 2017 served as the Respite Employer Engagement Coordinator through a contract with the Nebraska Lifespan Respite Network. A replicable model of employer recruitment has been used to share respite resources with employers since 2017. She also partnered with the Center of Children, Families and the Law, and the University of Wisconsin in Madison to develop Nebraska’s working caregiver survey. This is an anonymous survey that employers can use to better support working caregivers on their teams.