Photo: Any Baby Can
United Way for Greater Austin believes collaboration is essential to tackling our community’s largest problems. We work with many nonprofit, public and private organizations in our community to have a larger impact and create real change in our city. One of these funded partners is Any Baby Can.
Any Baby Can is a nonprofit organization that believes “all children deserve the chance to be healthy and happy”—a vision in line with UWATX’s own. Any Baby Can serves children with developmental delays, chronic or life-threatening illnesses and hearing loss, as well as their families. Any Baby Can also serves first-time pregnant women, including teenage moms, moms with postpartum depression and parents seeking parenting skills.
According to Any Baby Can’s website, 34,959 children in Travis County have a special health care need. Services Any Baby Can offers to their clients include in-home physical, occupational and speech therapy, case management, mental health counseling for anyone in the family, support groups and nurse-home visitation. They also partner with Open Door Preschool so that parents receiving onsite classes have quality childcare while they are learning new parenting skills.
Any Baby Can hosts monthly organization tours open to anyone interested in learning more about the organization. While on the tour, the absence of workers in many of the offices is striking. This is because much of Any Baby Can’s therapy and case work is done in the homes of their clients.
Any Baby Can has boasts many robust programs. One such program, No Estás Solo, provides in-home mental health counseling for anyone in the family being served that needs it. This means not only does the child affected by an illness feel supported, but parents, siblings and grandparents who are also dealing with the illness of their loved one get the support they need.
Another program, Nurse Family Partnership, serves mostly 16 to 24 year old women who are pregnant for the first time and are living at 175 percent of the poverty level. Nurses are paired up with the young women from the time she is pregnant until the child is two years old, making sure both mother and child receive the care and education they need. This program serves about 200 women at a time. This program is especially vital in Travis County, which has a higher than national average teen pregnancy rate.
Any Baby Can is also part of the Ready Families initiative that UWATX is a part of, along with other organizations, making sure Austin’s most vulnerable children are receiving high-quality early education and are starting school on pace with their peers.
United Way for Greater Austin is proud to fund and work alongside Any Baby Can!