About a year ago at the International Association of Adolescent Health conference in Paris I was fortunate to experience the sharing of a presentation with wonderful people from the ChIPS Program. I work at the Centre of Adolescent Medicine based at the University Hospital of Copenhagen, Rigshospitalet, in Denmark. There I work as a Social Educator in a multidisciplinary team running a youth service which strives to empower adolescents living with their illness or those who go through long term hospitalization.

I got so inspired by the ChIPS Program because it had developed an approach to engage young people in youth participation and peer support that I have never encountered before. I was granted a study visit to come and experience the amazing program and learn from the staff experiences. I will use this knowledge to develop a branch of our already existing program in Denmark to incorporate peer support and youth participation. Hopefully I will be able to share this with the ChIPS Program in the future.

It has been such a big experience to follow Meagan and Jarnia’s work with the young people engaging in the ChIPS Program. They are doing an outstanding job and have so much dedication and heart. I have witnessed ChIPS Tunes and seen how much impact it has on the young people. The young people are not only playing music – they are healing themselves and this should without a doubt be credited to how the staff interact and structure the sessions.

To be invited to sit in on the two day Intensive with Jarnia and see how she facilitated and introduced nine individual different young people to the ChIPS Program was such an incredible experience. In less than two hours the young people felt ready to share their life experiences living with a chronic illness and to support each other with understanding in a way beyond imagination that you only could get a sense of being present.

Now I’m really looking forward to ChIPS Camp and experiencing what all the young people I have spoken to speak so highly about.

Thanks for the opportunity to witness the works of the Chips Program – for sure they are all amazing young people that have given me so much to take back home.