The Katherine Adler Astrove
Youth Education Fund

Adolescence is a challenging time for parents and kids alike, but for teens with diabetes there is the added dimension of ongoing medical care and the daily intrusion of diabetes management tasks for families to negotiate together. The Katherine Adler Astrove Youth Education Fund at Joslin Diabetes Center supports the Astrove Parent Support Network at Joslin/Boston, a monthly group meeting which helps parents of adolescents with diabetes learn from each other and the Joslin/Boston staff about how to help their teens live well with diabetes.

In addition to the very successful Astrove Parent Support Network, teens with diabetes and their parents may now participate in on-line discussion boards created especially for them. The discussion boards offer frequently asked questions and participants have an opportunity to post a question to Joslin staff twenty-four hours a day. In response, a member of the pediatric team will reply to posted questions. In addition, parents will have their own board and the opportunity to ask questions of Joslin staff. The new online discussion board for teens, and the separate discussion board for parents are also supported by the Katherine Adler Astrove Youth Education Fund and are an effort to take the success of the group meetings to a broader group of kids and their parents via the Web.

The fund was created by Katherine Adler Astrove and her husband Edgar. Mrs. Astrove had diabetes for more than 55 years before dying of cancer in 1997. "My wife very much wanted to create a program that would help children with diabetes have a more positive experience, because she knew the challenges of living with childhood diabetes," says Mr. Astrove. "It's our hope that this extension of her dream to the Web will help even more kids and their parents."