::: the hospital comes to kinder
One of our supporters, Natasha from “Hospital Play (with Life Spirals)”, mentioned recently that she is a play therapist at a Melbourne hospital who also visits kindergartens to chat and play with children to help alleviate any concerns they may have regarding going into hospital.
She very kindly offered to visit our kinder, talk to our children and let them have fun with all the gear she brought along.
After a bit of an introduction about her job as a play therapist, she told the children the procedures they would experience if they had to go into hospital following an accident or illness, such as having a name bracelet popped on their wrists, temperature taken, height checked and so on. Then off they went to play.
Natasha had a wide range of puzzles, dolls and teddies needing immediate doctoring, as well as a miniature wheel chair, medical equipment, even X rays on a light box.
The children had a ball and were great at helping to clean up the mess at the end!
Natasha finished the session with some songs and a story. Thanks Natasha, we really enjoyed your visit.
If anyone is interested in a similar sort of session at their own preschool, Natasha is in the process of setting up her own website, but meantimes you will be able to get in touch via her “Hospital Play (with Life Spirals)” Facebook link.
::: Update as @ August 11th. Natasha now has her webiste up and running. You can visit it right here. http://www.lifespirals.com.au/
Congratulations Natasha and good luck with “Life Spirals”!
We seem to have lots of kids from our school who spend their weekends at the hospital. A few weeks ago, two of them ran into one another in the ER, both there to have their injuries treated!
I’ve never thought to have an adult come talk to the kids. I’ll have to research to see if we have anyone doing this in our area.
We have, however, had several kids who shared their hospital experiences with us, like little Conail who had hemophilia. He used to proudly bare his chest in front of the class each week, revealing the shunt the doctors had installed, while his dad injected “factor” into his blood stream to encourage clotting. The other children were soooo impressed.
::: Tom we trust those children weren’t in the ER due to any preschool experience … you know burns, amputations that sort of thing … haha!
Another ‘super hero child’ of Woodland Park … first Owain and now Conail, what another brave little boy!
OMG my kids would have LOVED that – what a great day – what a great idea!
Hi Tom, I wanted to let you know that in Australia my profession is call hospital play therapy/educational play therapy but in the States they are titled as Child Life Specialists if this helps you to track down a similiar program where you are.
::: Thanks Natasha. We’ll make sure Tom gets this message.
