Children's Inn at NIH

The Inn provides "A Place Like Home" in a healing environment for seriously ill children and families to stay together while participating in groundbreaking medical treatment at NIH.

Why do we exist?

The Children’s Inn at NIH is “a place like home” for pediatric outpatients and their families at the National Institutes of Health, the nation’s leading biomedical research center. Families seek treatment for their critically ill children at the NIH as their last, best hope for a healthy future. These young patients are facing medical challenges that range from cancers to rare genetic illnesses. Some diseases have yet to be identified. Often NIH is the only medical center offering treatment and the promise of a cure. 
While the NIH takes care of the child’s medical needs, The Inn tends to the child’s heart, soul, and spirit. At the end of a long day of pokes and prods at the hospital, kids come home to The Inn just to be kids – to paint a picture with mom, read a book with dad, or play video games with siblings or new-found friends. The care and empathy these families give to one another is invaluable.

What have you accomplished?

Since The Inn opened in June 1990, more than 10,000 pediatric patients and their families have called The Inn home. We receive many testimonials from families of what The Inn has meant to them or the difference it has made in their lives. One family that stands out is the Putvin family. Born May 10, 1995, Miranda Putvin weighed only 2 pounds, 2 ounces and spent the first 100 days of her life in the NICU. Doctors struggled to control several brain bleeds and her earliest months were spent with daily high fevers and her joints, lymph nodes, spleen, and liver were perpetually swollen. By January 1996, doctors had to surgically insert a shunt to relieve all of the fluid around Miranda’s brain and administer mega-doses of steroids. After unsuccessful rounds of chemotherapy, Miranda’s pediatrician was referred to a doctor who was able to diagnose Miranda with NOMID: neonatal onset multisystem inflammatory disease; she has one of roughly 100 cases worldwide. Shortly before Miranda’s 8th birthday, the Putvins were recruited to participate in a study of NOMID at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Miranda’s mother Sherri was hesitant about staying at The Children’s Inn for the family’s first visit to NIH for treatment in 2003, but Sherri’s memories, and the progress Miranda has experienced in her seven years of coming to The Inn, have been overwhelmingly positive. The family of five, including the Putvin’s older children, Jessica and Jimmy, now 20 and 19 respectively, drive down together from their home in Weedsport, NY every 6 months when Miranda needs treatment. Miranda’s father, Jim, has often shared his musical talents with The Inn, and over the years the family has been able to enjoy activities organized by The Inn like trips to the Montgomery Mall, bingo nights, and dinner and a movie at the Ritz Carlton.

Today, Miranda’s favorites at The Inn are the art room, the playroom, and the “prize boxes” where she gets her Thoughtful Treasures every day.  “She still has every stuffed animal and crayon,” Sherri says, and while the mailboxes hold surprises for Miranda every day, Sherri appreciates the predictable solace that The Children’s Inn provides. “I really need this place. It’s not just that it’s free, though that does help a lot. I need the comfort, the security of knowing that someone here is going to make things easier to deal with.”

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