Our Mission:
The mission of the Claire Bear Foundation is to enhance infant safety and reducing infant mortality through education and outreach regarding safe sleep practices; offer comprehensive family support; and address disparities in race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic factors to reduce the incidence of Sudden Unexplained Infant Death through direct services such as crib distribution.
What do we do?
We provide portable cribs, sleep sacks, and pacificers for families with a financial need across the United States. We are a very proud Cribs for Kids partner!
Unfortunately, we also know the pain of losing a child. When a loss like this happens, in addition to grief and sorrow, there are unplanned expenses related to funeral costs or medical bills. The Claire Bear Foundation also provides financial bereavement support to families to try and help ease this burden.
We offer support to other organizations who also focus on child safety, preventing Sudden Unexplained Infant Death (SUID), and giving our all to helping families. The Claire Bear Foundation are thankful to provide funds to nonprofits like MultiCare. There is a Claire Raphael Training Room at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital that has infant and child-sized simulation mannequins and provide some of the most up-to-date simulation training for CPR, intubations, and intraosseous cannulation. This is one of the only community hospitals in the state that have this type of training opportunity for medical personnel. With the hospital expanding to a stand-alone children’s hospital in Tacoma, we are hoping to also expand the simulation room! In addition to the training room, the Claire Bear Foundation will continue to support Bridges Center for Grieving Children, just as Bridges supported our family after losing Claire. In an effort to help prevent financial barriers from becoming obstacles for infant safety, we will continue to be a resource for Mary Bridge's Center for Childhood Safety and provide families a portable crib and sleep-related items at no cost.
And we can’t forget about the annual Claire Whitten Raphael Scholarship. Each year, a scholarship is given to a high school senior from Foss High School in Tacoma, WA. We want recipients to land more softly in college, and to be someone who embodies how we feel Claire truly was: kind, sweet, giving, strong, loving, and determined. We believe that Claire’s contributions continue in seen and unseen ways, and we know that everything about her is founded on love and hope. This scholarship is given in that love and hope.
See below for some of the work that has already been done, the advocacy and education activities we are involved in at the state and national level, and our vision of what we would like to continue.
Hospital Training Room
Shayna & Justin, in collaboration with Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital and the staff that tried to save Claire, worked together on what would be the best way to honor her. In April 2018, The Claire Raphael Training room opened up, equipped with cutting-edge technology and place where Mary Bridge teams can practice resuscitation scenarios on a child-size mannequin. The mannequin breathes and mimics vital signs, and monitors mimic those in the ED. With the expansion of Mary Bridge to a stand-alone facility, we hope to also help expand the simulation room.
American Academy of Pediatrics National Collaborative
Representing the foundation, Shayna is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ National Collaborative of Safe Infant Sleep, partnering with other nonprofits and medical experts to reduce the overall rates of Sudden Unexplained Infant Death (SUID) and reduce racial and ethnic disparities in SUID.
Washington DC Advocacy
Shayna & Justin are proud to have gone to Washington DC as Child Care Aware of America Parent Advocates, speaking to lawmakers about the importance of safe, accessible, and high quality child care for all families.
College Scholarship
Claire’s grandmother was the principal at Foss High School in Tacoma, WA at the time of Claire’s death. At only 10.5 months old, Claire had not spent any significant amount of time in any school, except for Foss. Each year, a scholarship is given out to a high school senior, nominated by faculty and chosen by the principal. This senior embodies who we think Claire would be: loving, kind, driven, smart, funny. We hope to continue this scholarship each year.