{"id":10274,"date":"2024-03-22T14:25:53","date_gmt":"2024-03-22T03:25:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/?p=10274"},"modified":"2024-03-25T14:06:16","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T03:06:16","slug":"champions-for-children-meet-tammy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/champions-for-children-meet-tammy\/","title":{"rendered":"Champions for Children: Meet Tammy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"auto\"><b><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-10275 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/files\/2024\/03\/picture-1.png\" alt=\"Champions for Children: Meet Tammy\" width=\"400\" height=\"267\" \/>Tammy Young is a Child Life Therapist at the Royal Children\u2019s Hospital.<\/b><\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\">Thanks to Woolworths and the Good Friday Appeal, The Royal Children\u2019s Hospital (RCH)<b>\u00a0<\/b>will be expanding its Child Life Therapy (CLT) program to the Emergency Department (ED), to reduce stress for patients, families and staff, and help make a visit to the hospital a more positive experience for everyone.\u00a0We spoke to CLT Tammy to find out more about a day in her life at the hospital.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\"><b>Hi Tammy! Tell us about yourself and your work at the RCH?<\/b><\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\">I have recently joined the RCH where I am employed to work in the ED. I have worked as CLT for over 8 years\u00a0at another paediatric facility. I am passionate about ensuring we have children\u2019s voices captured in the work we do. This includes children who may not be able to tells us, so focusing on nonverbal cues is important. I have two grown up children and love travelling.\u00a0<b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\"><b>Can you explain the benefits of CLT?<\/b><\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\">CLT\u00a0engage\u00a0children,\u00a0young people and their families to support their\u00a0understanding and help them cope with the stress\u00a0and uncertainty associated with hospitalisation.\u00a0We use\u00a0evidence-based, developmentally\u00a0appropriate interventions including procedural\u00a0preparation, distraction, medical and targeted\u00a0therapeutic\u00a0play to\u00a0empower\u00a0children and young people to\u00a0gain mastery of their\u00a0hospital\u00a0experience.\u00a0CLT help to promote positive healthcare experiences.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\"><b>How do you see the expansion of CLT into the ED making a difference for our patients?<\/b><\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\">The Emergency Department can often be\u00a0a child\u00a0first experience with medical interventions. \u00a0The\u00a0ED can also be a noisy and confronting environment. CLT have a vital role in supporting children<s>\u00a0<\/s>and their families to understand what they need to do during their visit. CLT also help to create\u00a0environments\u00a0that<s>\u00a0<\/s>meet the diverse needs of children and their families.\u00a0We do this by assessing, preparing and supporting children during their hospital experiences. We also\u00a0provide targeted medical and therapeutic play. Our\u00a0aim is\u00a0to minimise distress and\u00a0promote coping strategies, in the hope to\u00a0empower children\u00a0to manage future medical interventions.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"auto\"><b>What three things would you take to a desert island and why?<\/b><\/p>\n<ul dir=\"auto\">\n<li>Tent for shelter, somewhere to sleep<\/li>\n<li>A fire-starting kit to keep me warm, cook food if I\u2019m lucky enough to find or catch anything<\/li>\n<li>And a boat. Hopefully I could get of the island once I have had enough!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thanks to Woolworths and the Good Friday Appeal, the RCH will be expanding its Child Life Therapy program to the Emergency Department!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8971,7198,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-good-friday-appeal","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10274"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10284,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10274\/revisions\/10284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}