Sometimes, life presents us with opportunities to make a difference, to change a life, and to bring joy to those who need it most. We were fortunate to have one such opportunity when we met Thomas LoBianco and Aurora Lewis from the outstanding organization, Tender Care. Tender Care, located in the Lake Park area, is more than just a facility; it's a haven for children with special medical needs, offering skilled nursing care, therapies, and even transportation. Thomas shares a touching personal story of adopting two girls he previously cared for at Tender Care and the remarkable difference made by the early interventions provided by the organization on their development.
Sometimes, life presents us with opportunities to make a difference, to change a life, and to bring joy to those who need it most. We were fortunate to have one such opportunity when we met Thomas LoBianco and Aurora Lewis from the outstanding organization, Tender Care. Tender Care, located in the Lake Park area, is more than just a facility; it's a haven for children with special medical needs, offering skilled nursing care, therapies, and even transportation. Thomas shares a touching personal story of adopting two girls he previously cared for at Tender Care and the remarkable difference made by the early interventions provided by the organization on their development.
Good morning. Good morning.
Speaker 2:Let's see. I don't know why I'm sideways. Hold on.
Speaker 3:Hi everybody, Welcome to another episode of I Love Palm Beach, and we have some really interesting people here today. We've got Thomas Lobionco and Aurora Lewis, and they're from a company called Tender Care. Tender Care is a very special organization and they've just expanded into Palm Beach County and they help families out with children that may have some form of disability and need some special care. But, Thomas, I'm going to let you fill in on that Sure.
Speaker 2:So we are very happy to announce that we've just opened in the Lake Park area in West Palm and we opened a PPEC facility, which stands for Prescribed Pediatric Extended Care. We take care of children with special medical needs from birth to 21 years of age, and while they're in our care they get skilled nursing care, therapies, occupational, physical and speech therapy, as well as transportation to and from the facility, and all of this is covered for Medicaid for their children to qualify.
Speaker 3:Well, that's wonderful. I did not even know these facilities existed and I think it's really important. Here's our other guest coming, Stephanie. Hey, Stephanie, she's connecting now, so I'll keep going.
Speaker 4:I am so sorry guys.
Speaker 3:That's okay, we started. Let's just keep going, all right. So Thomas was telling us about what's called a PIC, but go ahead and I'll let you fill in again, so I don't get it messed up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no problem. So tender care is a prescribed pediatric extended care. A lot of people call it a PPEC, and we are basically a skilled nursing facility for children with special medical needs. We take care of them throughout the day and provide the nursing services as well as therapy skilled therapy is like occupational, physical and speech therapy and provide transportation to and from the center, and all of this is at no cost to the families with Medicaid.
Speaker 3:So I guess your new facility is in the Lake Park area, so it's going to serve Northern Palm Beach County. How far do your families usually travel for the care?
Speaker 2:So families that travel typically will be within 20 minutes, but we do offer transportation up to an hour away so they could be a little bit further, as long as we don't have the child on the bus for too long. We like to keep the child's bus route under an hour, but we will transport them that far.
Speaker 3:Okay, and let's go back to how are the children eligible? Is it coordination with a school? They may already be in, but they can't go to school for various reasons, and they're going to have it right in your facility.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so depending on the child and their diagnosis, we will either work with the schools where they come to us on school closing days or sometimes, if the child has medical needs that can't be accommodated in the school, we might be a better setting. So what we're looking to do is build relationships with the local schools to offer hospital homebound services at the facility, so they'll get a teacher from the local school district that comes to the center and sees the child and works with the child and one of our staff members.
Speaker 3:Okay, so I know, when we were chatting the other day, I wanted to hear your story how you ended up in Palm Beach County, how you ended up in that business. So go ahead. Are we going to cry when we hear the story?
Speaker 2:So my story is not so much how we started but my personal experience with what we do. First I can tell you that Tender Care has been around since 1988. Our first facility was open in Fort Lauderdale and we've slowly grown through the state. We kind of go in pairs. So our Fort Lauderdale Center didn't have a second one. So that's what made us come to Palm Beach County. We're about an hour away from the Fort Lauderdale facility and they can kind of work and tan them together, you know, through staffing and everything like that. But I'll start out with my story.
Speaker 2:So my I was the administrator at our facility in the D'Anauilin area, which is right outside of Ocala, and we had two girls that were recently out of the NICU. They were only three months old and they had been with us for a couple of weeks and they were being removed from their home and didn't have placement so they were possibly going to split them. They weren't sure, maybe out of state. They couldn't find any relatives. So I text my wife and said do you want twins for the night? And the twins for the night has turned into.
Speaker 2:On July 9th we celebrated three years with them. We have what's called permanent guardianship and with the hope of full adoption coming soon. But I've seen firsthand what our intense therapies and our nursing care can do for these children and when we first had them placed with us I thought they were going to have delays and all these different issues. Slowly, you know, they started coming out of everything feeding issues, hearing, walking. Now they're three years old and a regular daycare, thriving. So those early interventions we were able to provide for them and the care we were able to give them in that time was tremendous for their growth and for their ability to now. No one would know that they had this past and they are the cutest little girls ever. I absolutely love them.
Speaker 2:And they do my everything. They made five for us as well.
Speaker 3:So twins for a night became twins for life. Huh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:That's amazing. It's so wonderful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it all started with a text message. Yep.
Speaker 3:That's how it goes.
Speaker 2:So I'm a true believer in the services we offer and what we do and how we can change the lives of these children and the families.
Speaker 3:Okay, stephanie, you have any questions?
Speaker 4:It's clearly evident. Are there any organizations that you guys tend to partner up with quite frequently?
Speaker 2:So you know we look to be involved in the communities and you know right now we've partnered with chasing a dream. They're local to Palm Beach and they do some amazing things for the families and the children in the area. Last I believe it was last March they had a fashion show for their kids that they serve and they raise money and with some of the money they raised they were able to purchase a handicap accessible van for one of the families.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they actually now have an office inside our building as well.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's wonderful. I think I told you the other day we do quite a bit of fundraising for Place of Hope and we would love to get you guys in touch with them and partner up with them 100% and we're really looking forward to making connections like that inside the county is incredible and you know I'm very thankful for foster parents doing it.
Speaker 2:You know firsthand, you can see that there's a need for it and the system is broken in some ways.
Speaker 3:So when there's organizations like that. It makes such a difference.
Speaker 4:And then I was going to say for just kind of national awareness too. Obviously we're speaking local to our area, but if people were listening to this from other areas, what is your advice to them? Just bring an awareness to you. Know how people can find solutions for their needs and situations if they weren't so lucky to be nearby you.
Speaker 2:Right. So our goal is to become a resource for parents if we can't help them, to point them in the right direction. So right now on our website we've got a resources section and we've got different blogs with some info that could help them. And, if anything, if there's not what we offer in the area, we'd love to try to help them. If they sent us an email or a message, we could try to place them with people that might help them in their area.
Speaker 3:Yeah, make sure we've got your email and website. We want to get that out there to them. I think one of the frustrating things for a lot of parents is they don't even know how to get Medicaid. You know, they don't even know how to navigate the system, and a resource for that would be much appreciated.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for the families with children under five they can pay for the medical treatment of their children. So they can have Colorado healthy kids and have a Medicaid lookalike plan that would cover PPEC services. So if their child is under five and hasn't you know medical diagnosis that would qualify, they could go through Florida healthy kids and then get services through that with us.
Speaker 3:Oh well, that's great to know 21.
Speaker 2:21.
Speaker 3:21. Great 21. I know the Ernie L School is a big resource in our area for autistic children. Have you done any work with them or do you need an introduction to work with them?
Speaker 2:No, an introduction would be fantastic. We like to work with autism places because we'll get a lot of calls for children with autism and autism alone doesn't qualify for our services. So if we have a place we can work with and refer to, it makes a perfect partnership between the two of us, and we've done that at other locations so we can help these families and point them in the right direction.
Speaker 3:Okay, let's talk about. I know you and I and Stephanie and Aurora talked the other day, but tell me again what the gap is, what you guys are able to do, what are the typical children that you have in your facility? So it's really clear for everybody.
Speaker 2:Okay. So they have to have a medical diagnosis. That requires skilled nursing care. So a lot of times it's feeding tubes, trachs, like where they breathe out of their neck with a trach. Other times it could be seizures, diabetes that is not managed very well we can manage that with our nurses and then cerebral palsy. There's a wide range, but they have to have that need for nursing care throughout the day. Sometimes it could be they don't. They're the aspirate if they have, you know. Finally, fluids, sometimes it could be their oxygen dependent. It just there's a. There's a wide range. But if a family contacts us, we'd love to talk to them and then you know, see what we can do to help them qualify.
Speaker 3:Okay, great, and then I always go back to you. Told us a little bit. Are you living here in Palm Beach County now? Thomas, were you just going?
Speaker 2:I am not living there, so I spend about every other week there. Okay, honestly, I would move there in a heartbeat if I could. It's beautiful. I love it. I love the area. The beaches are incredible.
Speaker 3:Yes, because we love Palm Beach, and that's what this is all about. And you did tell me you were spending your weekend on the beaches of Palm Beach this weekend.
Speaker 2:Yes, we were on a senior island and I'll tell you, the water is crystal clear and just the turtles. We didn't get to see any live hatching turtles, but we've seen a couple babies making it to the ocean and that was an incredible experience.
Speaker 3:That's wonderful. That's awesome. So just to recap, what can you know? What do families need to do in the area? I want your email, your phone number, and then how can the community be a resource for you guys opening up in Palm Beach County?
Speaker 2:Just helping us spread awareness for what we do. It's not very many people know or understand, but it can be such a difference maker for families. So we give mom the ability to go back to school or go back to work and have a place that she can trust take care of her child. The same thing we give the family to have the ability to take care of their other children and do things with their other children and have this place that they know there's licensed professionals that truly love what they do and taking care of the children is they take pride in it.
Speaker 3:Aurora. Anything you would like to add?
Speaker 1:Yes, so you can find us at. Tcmscare is our website, and then we are also on all the social media platforms as Tinder, kare Pepe.
Speaker 3:Okay, we will make sure you have links to this podcast. You can share it on your social. We're gonna put it all over our social media. Try to get the word out. We will definitely get you introductions to Place A Hope and Ernie L School. Stephanie, anything from you.
Speaker 4:No, I think it's wonderful. Thank you, guys for everything that you do for the community and for one-on-one in people's lives.
Speaker 3:And we definitely would maybe like to set up a tour for some people, some ladies and volunteers that would like to come and help out. Anything that your facilities are in need of, that the community can help with School supplies, anything like that.
Speaker 2:Not at the moment. So as we grow, as we grow, there definitely will be Aurora. Can you think of anything?
Speaker 1:I cannot at the moment but, as Thomas says, as we get more kids in our facility we may need certain supplies.
Speaker 3:Let us know. I know a bunch of women that are ready to help.
Speaker 1:Oh awesome.
Speaker 2:One thing is Christmas time. Christmas time we like to provide gifts for the children and do Santa Claus and all that stuff. So at that time maybe we could see if we could do some sort of a present drive or something for the children.
Speaker 3:I know Stephanie and I have something planned for the holidays and I think we can get lots of toys.
Speaker 1:Oh, awesome.
Speaker 3:For all ages. We'll get a wish list from you.
Speaker 2:Well, guys, I'm going to wrap it up.
Speaker 3:I know it's a Monday and we're all busy and all a little slow here today, but I'm so happy to have you guys on the show. We have everything out to you soon and once again, thanks for everybody who listens to. I Love Mom Beach. Have a wonderful Monday.
Speaker 1:Thank you.