Child Life Therapy

Child Life therapy is an allied health service that helps to nurture and support children, teens, siblings and families during their stay in hospital. As part of CHAMPs (Child Life, Art and Music Therapy Programmes), Child Life Therapy at KKH supports patients of all ages to cope with medical treatment, manage their pain, express their feelings and achieve rehabilitation goals.

What is Child Life Therapy?

Therapeutic play in the hospital is also known as Child Life Therapy. Child Life Therapy helps to address challenging emotional needs of children who have an illness or surgery that requires hospitalization.

A hospital stay can be stressful for children and their families. Sometimes, children feel scared, confused and powerless. Therapeutic play in the form of medical play, expressive play and developmental play is used to help children understand and cope with illness, surgery, hospitalization, treatments and procedures.

Goals of Child Life Therapy

Child Life therapy aims to reduce stress, anxiety and fear that patients may face during their medical experiences at the hospital by providing a family-centred approach in helping hospitalised children to adjust to their hospital care.

Specific intervention play techniques are used to address challenges that may arise from hospitalisation. These include teaching paediatric patients on:

• coping strategies (with new diagnosis, with medical tests/procedures)
• how to manage medicine taking
• what to expect (with new diagnosis, medical procedures)

Child Life therapists help to explain and prepare the patients for upcoming procedures and are also on hand to provide distraction and diversions during difficult periods of time while hospitalised. Parents and siblings are empowered with knowledge and skills to help them cope with their hospitalized child/ sibling more effectively in the hospital.

Please click here to learn more about Child Life Therapy.

Child Life Therapy Services in KKH

Our Child Life therapists see children on a referral basis for the following reasons:

• For chronic illness, long-term stay, emotional/social problems, for developmental stimulation.
• To prepare children for procedures and surgery by helping them to understand the upcoming procedure at a developmentally appropriate level.
• Click here to view a child friendly cartoon animation video which helps to explain the process of coming to the hospital for an operation.
• Click here for some Pre-Operation Activity Sheets to help children remember useful tips shared in the video.
• To teach children coping strategies and relaxation techniques before and during painful procedures or for those who are experiencing chronic pain.
• To provide stimulation and opportunities to normalise the hospital environment for young children coping with illness
• To provide support groups for children with a similar diagnosis or emotional difficulties.

Our Child Life therapists also provide general play activities to give children an opportunity to do something familiar and to engage in during their time in the hospital. These general play sessions are run by Child Life volunteers who will work with the patients either by their bedside or at the general ward play area in the subsidised wards.

Our Experts