Pediatric Hospice and Palliative Care for Michigan Children and Families

Transforming Pediatric End-of-Life Care in Michigan

Michigan families caring for children with life-limiting or life-threatening illnesses face limited access to specialized pediatric palliative and hospice care. Insurance and traditional healthcare systems do not always provide the practical, emotional, and family support these families need.

Too often, children spend their final days in hospitals when families would prefer a more comfortable, home-like setting surrounded by the people they love.

The Mitten Pediatric Palliative and Hospice Foundation is working to change that.

Today, we provide compassionate pediatric palliative and hospice support, care navigation, resources, and advocacy to children and families across Michigan. Tomorrow, we will bring Michigan's first dedicated residential pediatric hospice home to life—a place where children can receive expert end-of-life care in a warm, home-like environment and families can focus on what matters most: being together.

A Home Away From Home

Michigan’s lack of a residential facility for pediatric hospice care represents a deep and urgent gap in the state’s healthcare landscape. While adult hospice residences exist to provide comfort, dignity, and family-centered support at the end of life, there is no equivalent home-like setting for children who are dying or living with life-limiting illnesses. Instead, families must navigate between hospitals — often clinical and impersonal — or attempt to provide complex medical care at home, where exhaustion and emotional strain can become overwhelming. The absence of a dedicated pediatric hospice home means that children are deprived of a space designed for their unique needs — a place filled with warmth, play, and compassion, where medical care and childhood can coexist. It also denies families a community of understanding and support during one of life’s most painful journeys. Creating such a facility is not just a matter of healthcare infrastructure; it is a moral commitment to ensure that no child or family in Michigan faces this experience without comfort, dignity, and care.

Our organization is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, which means we are recognized by the IRS as a tax-exempt, charitable entity. All donations made to us are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law, and every contribution directly supports our mission and the families we serve.