2009 Heart-In-Hand Pediatric Care Award

Pam Schanwald, CEO of The Children’s Home & Lemieux Family Center, will be honored with the Arthritis Foundation's First Annual Heart-in-Hand Award for her work in pediatric care and dedication to arthritis awareness. 

Pam Schanwald, CEO of The Children's Home & Lemieux Family Center

Pamela R. Schanwald became Chief Executive Officer of The Children’s Home of Pittsburgh in 1993.
Her responsibilities include Board development, education, strategic planning, financial management and project/program implementation.  Ms. Schanwald has direct oversight of three diverse and unique programs: a 28-bed licensed Pediatric Specialty Hospital that provides transitional, sub-acute care for infants and children in home-like, family-centered environment; Child’s Way®, a daycare center for medically fragile children, the first of its kind in Pennsylvania; and a licensed Infant Adoption program with a 115-year history of providing domestic infant placement and support services.

Ms. Schwanwald is largely credited with establishing Child’s Way® as the first licensed Pediatric Extended Care Center (PECC) in Pennsylvania. Seeing a gap in services for children with special medical needs, she lobbied for the passage of legislation so that the Department of Health could license this special daycare program. Child's Way has since served as the model for five other PECCs in Pennsylvania.

Most recently, Ms. Schanwald led The Children's Home through a $21 million dollar building project and a major expansion of its programs. Working with her Board of Directors and community leaders, she was the guiding force behind a three-year capital campaign and building project to open a new facility which has dramatically increased the availablilty of the organization’s services.

Prior to her tenure at The Children's Home, Ms. Schanwald was the first assistant administrator responsible for planning and marketing at the 120-bed Hospital for Sick Children in Washington, D.C.  She also served as an information specialist with the National Healthcare Group of Ernst & Young and she practiced as an oncology, pulmonary and infectious disease nurse at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland

Ms. Schanwald was born and raised near Washington D.C. in Rockville, Maryland. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing from Syracuse University and a Master of Health Services Administration from George Washington University in D.C. She is also a graduate of Leadership Pittsburgh Class XVII and a member of several professional organizations. She has received several prestigious awards for her leadership and efforts on behalf of medically fragile children, including the “Healthcare Hero Award in Community Outreach,” February 2000, presented by the Pittsburgh Business Times and Alpern Rosenthal; Carlow University’s “Women of Spirit” award, October 2004, for competent and compassionate service to the Pittsburgh community; and in 2005, she was named a “Fast Tracker” by the Pittsburgh Business Times.

Ms. Schanwald also designs and creates of her own line of hand-made jewelry. She resides in O’Hara Township with her husband, Seth, and her two children.