Christine Pham | PACT: Parents and Children Together

Christine Pham, Partner at RMG

Role within Organization: Member, Board of Directors
Number of Years/Months Involved: 7 Years

Why do you volunteer your time specifically with this organization?

I dedicate my time to PACT because it helps medically fragile children reach their fullest potential.  Their unique childcare facility is staffed with medical professionals who nurture and care for preschool children who other care facilities are unable or unwilling to take.  The organization also operates a childcare facility in Baltimore City for children of homeless families.  At this therapeutic nursery, the organization also works with the parents, sharing tools and techniques to help them connect with their children during their stressful situation.

Does this organization affect Baltimore as a whole?

It provides unique services in presenting parents a safe and nurturing environment in which to leave their children, knowing their medically fragile child, or one with special needs, will be well cared for during the workday.  Also, given the increase in the number of homeless families in Baltimore, the care facility at Sarah’s Hope provides children under the stress and anxiety of being homeless a measure of normalcy and peacefulness in which to learn and grow during their formative preschool years.  PACT teaches the parents mindfulness, silence, and focus, all which beget the confidence to be a good parent in a tough situation.  PACT gives parents a safe place and time to process the necessary parenting skills to support a child with special needs.

What is your favorite memory of working with this organization?

On a visit to the therapeutic nursery, I witnessed a “play” session between the program director, and a mother and child.   The program director discussed parent-child attachment tools and gave the mom the opportunity to put those tools to work.  The mother learned through the program to connect and be present with her child, allowing the child to explore and question and following the child’s lead.  The mother was amazed at the child’s curiosity.  The joy and satisfaction of being able to interact that way was so clear from the mother’s smile, and from her child’s laughter.

If you could do one thing to change the organization for the better, what would it be?

Finding renewable sources of funding so that the organization can focus on all of its wonderful programs rather than spending resources on searching for funding.