PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia’s Department of Public Health has officially launched a new website for its Division of Maternal, Child, and Family Health. Philly Loves Families is meant to be a dedicated resource for pregnant people and families with young children.
"There was no central repository for all these information resources and programs," said the division’s director, Dr. Stacey Kallem. "There was no one place to go if you are pregnant or have a young child in Philadelphia to get the resources you need."
But now that it is fully up and running, she said, the website will help a lot of families. The site is already finding its audience. A soft launch a month ago resulted in over 1,000 views with little or no promotion.
"I have a lot of connections with pediatricians and providers in the area, and people I know have just been reaching out to me saying that 'We love this,' 'We've been asking for this,'" Kallem said.
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Philly Loves Families is a central hub for all of the city’s maternal and family-support programs and resources.
"This program allows us to refer for home visiting, for supportive care, for breastfeeding support, safe sleep practices — all of those things — in a really nonjudgmental way," said Dr. Katie McPeak, a primary care pediatrician with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Galissa Jones, a breastfeeding counselor with the city’s health department, says there is a huge demand for this program.
"We have a lot of resources to always advocate or encourage families to take advantage of programs that they qualify for, even if they're not in crisis," Jones said.
Pamela Newman, the division’s community engagement consultant, is a mom from West Philadelphia. She used the services of the "Philly Families CAN" network when she had her baby. She says she supports this new initiative because the website fills a disturbing gap.
"The gap is just the knowledge that the programs are out there," Newman said, "because there's so many resources to connect people to breastfeeding, connect people to other parents, especially coming out of the pandemic."
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