About Us

The hospital as a civic leader

As one of the largest institutions in Boston and in Massachusetts, Children's feels an important responsibility as a civic leader. This leadership can be summarized in two key ways:

• providing reliable health expertise and child-focused perspectives to city and state civic organizations to improve the city at large, with particular attention to children, youth and families.
• being a workplace of choice in the health field, with particular attention to engaging youth and local adults in health careers.

Community improvement

Children's continues to be a leader and funder of the city's efforts to serve Boston's youngest children and their families; long-standing partnerships with the Boston Public Schools and the city of Boston's Countdown to Kindergarten initiative lead Children's to become an active player in the school-readiness collaboration known as Thrive in 5. Sandra Fenwick, Children's President and Chief Operating Officer, was chosen by Mayor Menino to co-chair the Thrive in 5 Action Planning Team, which worked to develop a roadmap to ensure that all children will enter school prepared for sustained school success.

The hospital also feels an important obligation to help improve the city of Boston on the whole and help ensure it is responsive to the needs of children and families. To achieve this, the hospital is active in a number of civic organizations and brings a purposeful, child-focused point of view to groups like the Conference of Boston Teaching Hospitals (COBTH), the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce (GBCC), Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation (MTF), Mass Inc. and A Better City (ABC).

Workforce development

Children's takes its roles as an employer and civic leader seriously and seeks to advance these roles through comprehensive workforce development efforts that provide community members, particularly local youth, with opportunities to explore health careers.

In addition to hosting job fairs and partnering with Boston schools and colleges, the hospital also provides opportunities for local youth to experience health care careers. Children's own comprehensive summer jobs program, Community Opportunities Advancement at Children's Hospital (COACH), offers students employment in a wide variety of programs and also gives them a safe, meaningful and productive way to spend the summer. During the school year, the Student Career Opportunity Outreach Program (SCOOP) at Children's inspires 250-300 high school students to enter nursing through field trips to the hospital, direct nurse-to-student education, shadowing, career advice, and summer internships; along the way, SCOOP helps dispel many of the myths about nursing and offers students hands-on opportunities to work in health care.

The hospital also supports the local community and ensures a diverse workforce by recruiting and retaining Boston residents as employees.