Grant helps clown doctors spread cheer to children
CHILDREN'S hospital wards in Northern Ireland have been experiencing a new kind of medicine: laughter.
Dressed as clowns, a team of experienced arts performers visit sick children at their bedsides in hospitals and hospices.
The project, called ClownDoctor, says that its aim is to make hospital a less daunting experience for both parents and children.
The charity has just been awarded a 9,380 Lottery award to recruit and train new clowns.
It is five years since the team began visiting wards across the Province. Now they make regular weekly and repeat visits to acute hospitals and hospices, and the grant will help further expand the project.
The clowns visit children who are chronically ill and those hospitalised on a long-term basis, as well as children and young people with severe disabilities.
To entertain the child, they use "spontaneous play and improvisation", encouraging the child to take part. But they are sensitive to the fact some kids are not in the mood.
"Every child has a right to play and to enjoy themselves and that's why we're here," said Jan Branch, director of the project in Northern Ireland.
"Hospitals are challenging places for anyone, especially children who find themselves in a different, confusing and sometimes alien place."
The lottery money will help increase the number of ClownDoctors, of whom there are currently four, with a further six now in training.
Among the present four, Elaine Duncan — also known as 'Dr Twinkle' — has been visiting children three days a week since the project was launched in 2004.
"It's really nice to be able to work with the children and see the smiles on their faces," she said.
Elaine, who is an actress, praised the "fantastic" work of the children's wards where the clowns perform.
Explaining how the children are put at their ease, she continued: "The children have the choice whether they want to chat or play with us as we want to make sure they feel as comfortable as possible.
"It's great when you do something that makes them giggle and you know they are having fun."
Speaking of the children's reaction, she said: "Most kids are very happy to join in and play with us. Children cannot choose not to have a treatment and cannot say no to an injection, whereas if they don't want to play with us, that is fine. We give them a choice."
Elaine described the ClownDoctors approach as gentle.
"We don't just burst into a ward: we take it slowly and let parents, visitors and other children see us. We play music and they can hear us if we are round a corner. It gets them used to us being there.”
She explained how her experience working in the wards means “you learn to read the atmosphere and signals from the children”.
“We scan round a ward as we come in and we ask permission from the first child who catches our eye.”
The money, which comes from the Big Lottery Fund’s Awards for All programme, will go to Arts Care NI Ltd to recruit and train new ClownDoctors.
The Awards for All small grants programme is awarding grants totalling 545,243 to 70 groups across Northern Ireland.
Other recipients include Derry Well Women Limited, a group that works to improve the health of local women and families, which has been awarded a grant of 7,572.
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Monday 28 May 2012
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