Child Life Resource

Young People of The Pandemic: Children’s Voices in Unprecedented Times

~ Deb Vilas ~ 1 Comment

Nancy S. Nelson, MS, ATR, had a vision one week into the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. As she grappled with her own response to the surging COVID numbers and the lockdown in her home in NYC, she realized that children might have an even tougher time than adults coping with the pandemic. As an art therapist working in hospitals and private practice, Nancy had always known the importance of giving voice to children and youth through artistic expression. Now it felt like the right time to gather in the stories and words of children living through a vast disruption of their lives.

Not only did she gather over 125 submissions (over 40,000 words!) in four months — She also made leaders out of young people, hiring college students to gather, compile and assist in the editing work of this volume. From personal and professional contacts, Nancy established a core group of eleven 10-21 year-olds. Her request for participation in the book was a simple one.

Write two pieces in three months about what you experienced during the pandemic, and get two friends who live in other states to do the same.

The result was an incredible collection of voices from all over the country. Nancy holds deep admiration for the children and young people who were able to create even in the midst of so much loss and stress.

I realized that it was not mere writing talent that the contributors presented. It was their courage and honesty in being able to participate during such a tumultuous time in their lives.

Here is an except from the book by Maya Tuckman, age 14.

“All I Know

The world is changing drastically in ways I do not completely understand. Adults say we are living through a part of history, but we cannot predict what the future will bring, just like how I know who I am now but not who I will become. All I know-all that I can know-is the heat of my breath on my face under a cloth mask, fogging up my glasses; the whirring of my laptop computer in online classroom sessions, a sea of my classmates’ faces, in their homes, in hoodies and pajamas; the sound of my younger brother’s laughter and cheers, muffled from his bedroom, which he hardly leaves, as he plays video games with friends he can’t see; the gloves and mask that my Granny wears when cautiously visiting our house. I recognize that I am privileged to know these things. There are students whose educations are falling behind because of lack of access to both physical classrooms and digital resources. There are kids whose parents must leave the house everyday for work, potentially exposing themselves to the virus, but my parents work from home. There are the homeless, with no shelter to shield them, and those who live alone, with no one to keep them company. And then there are those who work on the front lines, in hospitals. Who are constantly overworked and overstressed. For me, some things have stayed the same. Like the smell of wet grass after the rain, the sound of the singing birds that flit about the trees. But I know other things won’t ever be the same. I know I will have to adapt and stay vigilant. So I hang on to the hope that the future will be brighter, even if things don’t look the same as they used to.”

And yet some things remained the same…………………

This book is a gift to all of us, the voices of those who will inherit the post-pandemic future. It is a call to all of us to do our best for these young people, to care for the earth and one another so that they can live into the possibilities we have only dreamt of.

To enter our give-away of an ECOPY of the book, please leave a comment on this blog, repost this blog in social media and tag #youngpeopeofthepandemic and @pediaplay.

Nancy S. Nelson

Rabbit Ray – Helping Kids with Needle Fears

~ debvilasconsult ~ Leave a comment

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Esther Wang has a vision. As an entrepreneur, designer and inventor, she has learned first hand what it means to use creative skills to make the world a better place. Esther took up the challenge of “How can we help kids be less afraid of needles?” in Singapore, her native country.  She designed Rabbit Ray, an interactive, virtually unbreakable, washable patient interactive device that empowers even more than it teaches. Continue reading →

Reach for It!

~ Deb Vilas ~ 6 Comments

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A community of street vendors lines the sidewalk around the corner from where I live. As I run the gauntlet of tourists and fellow New Yorkers, my yellow lab-pit mix lunges at an unsuspecting flock of pigeons. They burst into the air, settling a moment later. Gracie gives it another go, all but yelling “Hiyah!” as the birds flap around us.

One of the vendors calls out, “You just keep on going!”

I turn to him and smile. “Yeah, can you believe she’s 11 years old?”

“No, you,” he grins. “You’re like the energizer bunny, going and going.”

As Gracie pulls me on, I wonder. Why did he say that? I don’t know his name, but he knows something about me. At the end of my 1.6 mile walk around the reservoir, I return to his food cart.

“Hey, excuse me,“ I say. “Can I ask you a question?”

He turns from what he’s doing and steps closer to his cart window, looking down at me.

“Did you know that I’d been sick?” I ask him. “Is that why you said that before?”

He smiles kindly. “Yeah, I talked to the guy who walks your dog. I asked him about you.”

I let that sink in for a moment. I take another risk.

“You were sick a while back too, right? I noticed you’d lost weight, and then you weren’t around for a while.”

“I lost a kidney,” he replies. “But now I’m 100%.” He says this with a big smile, spreading his hands expansively to measure his improvement. “ What were you sick with?”

“Breast cancer,” I say, without hesitation. “Surgery, chemo, radiation, the whole shebang. Now I’m 100% too.”

I reach my hand into his cart. “I’m Debbie. Nice to meet you, neighbor.”

“Jimmy”, he says, shaking my hand.

I see this encounter as a reminder. I survived some pretty daunting medical treatment in 2013. But I had incredible support from some unexpected places. In addition to a community of colleagues and Bank Street College alumni who did everything from walking my dog to accompanying me to chemo appointments, I had my own secret weapon. I reached into my Child Life bag of tricks for coping mechanisms to help me through. I used play, humor, writing and videography to scaffold my journey.

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This week I face a much less frightening surgery, an outpatient procedure to mend a torn tendon in my right wrist. Until this morning, though, I have to admit I was feeling a bit sorry for myself and pretty anxious about being stuck left handed for the duration of my recovery.

But Jimmy’s witnessing was a reminder. It jumpstarted my awareness of the lessons learned during cancer treatment. I have all that I need. It’s all here. I can handle this. All I have to do is reach for it.

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NEWSFLASH! VIPAR Playroom Assessment Rubric now in fillable form

~ Deb Vilas ~ 2 Comments

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I am excited to announce the release of a fillable pdf format for the VIPAR, a new tool for your child life/hospital play toolkit. You can now fill out the VILAS Playroom Assessment Rubric (VIPAR) on your computer and print it out. The VIPAR is an assessment form to help you make your playroom the best it can be. There is a dream playroom in all of our imaginations. Time, space, budget constraints and infection control guidelines aside, we all know what we would provide children and families if we were able to do so. The  VIPAR (Vilas Playroom Assessment Rubric) (click on bold green type to access) is intended to present the best possible scenario, and to measure how your playroom is meeting the needs of all pediatric patients and families at your hospital. Child life specialists, hospital play specialists, and administrators can use this rubric as a quality checklist to assess playroom design and operation.

This rubric is several years in the making and has been test driven by many Bank Street College alumni. They kindly tried it out in their playrooms and provided me with feedback to improve the document, making it as accessible and flexible as possible.

Tara Horan reports that the rubric gave her staff  “feelings of empowerment to make positive changes.”

Kelsey Frawley shared, “Another AHA moment was the cultural competency piece. I think as specialist’s we are taught to BE culturally competent, not judge, ask questions, be aware of differences, but incorporating it into a room is something I have not thought of. The developmental appropriate piece really stuck out. It is something we have struggled with as a site and recently have committed to revamping. Kate Shamzad states “In fact, it inspired us to order a wall mirror to be installed in the infant/toddler section of the hem/onc room.”

I owe them and others many thanks for their input. But the VIPAR is and should be a work in progress. So please give me feedback if you use it at debvilasconsult@gmail.com. The form will soon be available on the Child Life Council’s website at the Play Center located in the Resource Library.