{"id":4860,"date":"2015-04-22T15:13:07","date_gmt":"2015-04-22T05:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/?p=4860"},"modified":"2015-04-29T08:36:46","modified_gmt":"2015-04-28T22:36:46","slug":"festival-of-chips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/festival-of-chips\/","title":{"rendered":"Festival of ChIPS"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jessica\"<\/a>
RCH ChIPS member Jess Marshal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The RCH Chronic Illness Peer Support program (ChIPS) is 21 years old this year.<\/p>\n

ChIPS brings young people together to share their experiences of chronic illness, create peer support networks and engage in activities that they may not get a chance to do otherwise.<\/p>\n

To celebrate, the hospital is holding a week-long \u2018Festival of ChIPS\u2019, commending the achievements of the program and exploring the road ahead.<\/p>\n

Long-time ChIPPER Jess Marshall explains\u00a0what ChIPS means to her:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cYour body, for all intents and purposes, is supposed to be your home. Some people say their bodies are their temples; mine is not so. I was born with Marfan syndrome, an incurable genetic disorder of the connective tissue. By fourteen, I was much less interested with the disease’s effects on my body, and much more so with what it was doing to my life. I had no friends, even less confidence, and was relentlessly bullied at school. Then, whilst writing a school assignment on chronic illness, I stumbled across the website for ChIPS.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ChIPS is a social support group for young people living with chronic illness between the ages of 12\u00a0and 25years, or so the website told me. What I really discovered was that it was a social support group for other young people who were just like me. We were alike in our differences, and I quickly found that I had come home. In the eight years that I have been a \u2018ChIPPER\u2019, I have had the opportunity to be a part of discussion groups, bi-annual camps, socials, and even be a member of the Reference Committee. I was quickly taught that ChIPS \u2018isn\u2019t about chronic illness. It\u2019s about being a young person and getting on with life\u2019, and Reference Committee exemplifies this belief. Every aspect of ChIPS is driven by ChIPPERs; we plan camps, socials, write for publications and fundraise, all the while studying, working and living with the day to day challenges of chronic illness.<\/p>\n

Recently, ChIPS celebrated its 21st birthday. In this time, countless young Victorian young people have entered its doors, and learnt how to make something of their lives while living with chronic illness. I am only one of these young people. At my own 21st birthday, the majority of people at my party were fellow ChIPPERs. They aren\u2019t just ChIPPERS; they are my\u00a0family.<\/p>\n

Next year, I will be graduating ChIPS as I enter my fifth year of University, where I am studying Psychology. I very much intend to return to ChIPS to volunteer my psychological skills when I am qualified. This body isn\u2019t what I would have chosen to be my home had I been given the chance. But the reality is, it doesn\u2019t matter anymore. ChIPS has taught me how to make my body my home.\u201d– Jess Marshall<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The RCH Chronic Illness Peer Support program (ChIPS) is 21 years old this year <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":93,"featured_media":4863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4860","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\/93"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4860"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4870,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4860\/revisions\/4870"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}