Child Life Therapy service
What is Child Life Therapy?
Child Life Therapy provides support to young patients and their families to ease the challenges and concerns of medical treatment. Our specialists use play, education, and emotional support tailored to each child's developmental stage to assist them in understanding and coping with medical procedures.
Recognising the stress and anxiety that hospitalisation can bring, Child Life Therapists use play, preparation, and personalised strategies to help children build resilience and coping skills. By providing age-appropriate explanations and a comforting environment, we aim to reduce anxiety and make the hospital experience more manageable
By normalising the hospital setting and offering developmentally appropriate activities, we aim to reduce stress and make the healthcare experience more manageable.
Our team works closely with families to ensure that children receive the support they need, making your time in hospital is as positive and supportive as possible.
We offer resources in this handbook to help you learn more about our services and how we can assist you.
Importance of play in hospitals
Play is important for children, whether they are inpatients or coming for a test or procedure. It helps:
- help build rapport and provides a positive experience
- maintain and encourage development, independence and resilience
- provide education and a greater understanding of what is happening
- relieve stress and anxiety
- help patients and families prepare for procedures, promoting compliance and reducing stress
- create some normality in the clinical environment
- familiarise children and young people with medical equipment
- provide opportunities for debriefing, self-expression and self-esteem building
- develop a sense of empowerment and control through play.
Tips for children in hospital
- Bring some familiar items from home, such as a favourite book, music, toy, pillow slip or blanket that may comfort your child or young person.
- Be honest with your child about their upcoming visit. This may help build trust with their healthcare team.
- Practice relaxation techniques with your child. These may include breathing exercises or controlled counting.
- Praise efforts and give encouragement for positive behaviours with verbal compliments or rewards.
- Encourage your child to engage in play whilst in hospital.
- Offer choices to your child or young person when appropriate to help them feel empowered. For example; offering medication in a syringe or spoon.
- Refocus your child鈥檚 attention through the use of distraction such as iPad games, breathing techniques and/or I spy activities during procedures or treatment.
- Avoid negative descriptions such as 鈥榮cary鈥� as the child may not be thinking it is scary 鈥� let them guide the discussions around how they are feeling, then validate the specific feeling they have as being ok and understandable.