About Us

The medical necessity for an intensive care facility for medically compromised babies was identified by Lake County Department of Child Services in 1993. The Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ responded to this critical need by creating Nazareth Home, which is licensed for up to six infants and children. Children range in age from newborn through six years of age. The children referred to Nazareth Home by the Department of Child Services are wards of the court. They remain at Nazareth Home until they can be reunited with their re-habilitated parents or placed with extended family members [42 children], adopted [31 children], or when they need to be placed in a long-term foster home [24 children].

At Nazareth Home, medically compromised children receive specialized care to help overcome their physical challenges. Crucial to their physical, spiritual and emotional development, is the unconditional love and support that every child deserves, in a stable and loving environment. According to Dr. James Goldyn, who has tracked the progress of the Nazareth Home babies from birth to grade school, it is this exceptional level of care that is directly responsible for these medically compromised babies to ultimately function as normal children. The nurturing environment creates children who model generosity, attentiveness and compassion in their social interaction.

The profile of a child placed at Nazareth Home by the Department of Child Services is heartbreaking. Some of the babies have birth weights of less than two pounds. Their lives are so fragile that they require tubes and monitors and oxygen to survive. They have compromised immune systems that dictate handling by a very small number of caregivers. Their medical needs may include such unique medical problems as a cleft palate, making feeding a lengthy and tedious process. Frequent trips in the middle of the night to hospital emergency rooms or air transport to various children’s medical centers are not uncommon. The children placed at Nazareth Home require a level of care not available in traditional settings. It is not unusual for a child placed at Nazareth Home to be so ill that the medical prognosis is that they may never talk, walk or run. Miracles occur as a result of the medical care and nurturing. Children not anticipated to survive are stabilized and gradually achieve the normal stages of early childhood development. Children with incredible physical limitations are adopted into loving families.

Nazareth Home is located in a suburban home in East Chicago and is an integral part of the community. The ministry maintains a home-like setting with children’s bedrooms, a living room, dining room, kitchen and playroom. During the past fourteen years, over one hundred foster children have been placed at Nazareth Home for as few as twenty-four hours and for as long as several years. At Nazareth Home, a medically compromised child receives the care and nurturing so critical in the early years of life to ensure that the child will progress through the appropriate stages of early childhood development. The director of Nazareth Home is a licensed foster parent with fourteen years of experience in caring for the medical needs of a unique group of children. Nazareth Home has a staff of seven full time employees including one with a degree in Child and Family Services. There are three on-call employees as well as a corps of medical professionals who coordinate health care.

In addition to the dedicated staff who provide care twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, Nazareth Home also has dozens of volunteer ‘cuddlers’ who devote hundreds of hours of their time each year to visit the house and play with the children. Nazareth Home is a wonderful example of how it takes a village to raise a child. There are forty-five volunteers who donated 4,365 hours of service at Nazareth Home during 2006. Using the Independent Sector’s most recent valuation criteria of $18.77 per hour for volunteer service, the value of that volunteer investment is more than $81,931, which lowers administrative costs substantially. Nazareth Home receives administrative support from Ancilla Systems Incorporated.

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