Welcome to our Social Media campaign where we focus on children facing difficult circumstances! There are so many challenging situations out there for our tamariki and rangatahi. 

We wanted, particularly this last week (23-30 June 2021), to shine the light on those children who are in hospitals and children of prisoners and bring awareness to those of our tamariki and rangatahi that are facing difficult circumstances. 

#childrenfacingdifficultcircumstances

Children of prisoners
‘Children of prisoners are one of the most vulnerable in our community.

When a parent goes to prison, the children left behind have an uncertain future. As well as the possibility of less family resources or a change of school or caregiver, they must also learn to live with the stigma of being the child of a person in prison.

And none of this is the fault of the child.’

Pillars New Zealand works with these children and their families to help them all have lives which are positive and contribute to healthy and successful futures. Thanks Pillars New Zealand for your care and great work! 

Charlotte Robertson’s research
“Children who have parents in prison have often experienced a lot of trauma. They might have witnessed violence at home, or they may have been traumatised by seeing their parent arrested or visiting them in prison.

It’s really important teachers understand the shame and the stigma and the bullying (children can both be bullied and become the bully). 
It’s also around respecting that, regardless of what the parent has done or what a loved one’s done, that person is important to that child.”

Charlotte Robertson, one of our members, works as a teacher with children of prisoners. In 2018, she received theMargaret M. Blackwell Travel Scholarship. With this she had the opportunity to visit six countries with the aim of better understanding how teachers can support the children of prisoners. Read here about her journey.

Māori Reserach

This study reports on the Māori data collected as part of a research project on the children of prisoners carried out in 2009 and 2010, for Pillars, a community organisation that works with the families of prisoners. It begins with the voices of four tamariki who each have a parent in prison. They tell us about their lives, good and bad.

The report outlines issues around the high rates of Māori imprisonment, and discusses the relatively small literature. Māori make up just over half of the prison population, but there has been very little research that attempts to explain this, nor offer solutions to it. In particular, the high level of Māori imprisonment might now be considered to have reached the level of ‘mass imprisonment’, which implies a self-sustaining cycle of increased incarceration, reaching across generations.

 Māku e kapu i te toiora

o ā tāua tamariki –

By my hand will our children be kept unharmed

tpk-childrenofprisonersdata-2011.pdf

Hospital play
Play is how children make sense of the world around them. 

In hospital, it helps them to express their feelings and worries, understand what is happening and cope with treatment. 

When a child is admitted to hospital, their usual routine is disrupted, and they may be separated from members of their family for certain periods of time. Having access to toys and games and being able to play whilst in hospital can bring some normality to a potentially stressful situation.

Play can help familiarise the unfamiliar surroundings of a hospital ward and create a positive experience and environment. It also helps hospital staff to engage with children who may be shy or unable to communicate and can encourage them to express their feelings and worries about treatments and procedures during their stay.

This awesome book helps to explain what tamariki will see, and do, in hospital and introduces hospital people like nurses, doctors, etc.

Important Reasons Play is Valuable in Healthcare

• Play in the hospital – and the availability of playrooms with familiar toys and games – helps children (and their families) to feel a sense of belonging in an otherwise unfamiliar, and possibly scary, environment.
• Encourages the participation of parents and siblings. Thus children achieve a stronger feeling of normality and continuation of their usual life, while alleviating parents’ anxiety.
• Facilitates communication among children, often enabling mutual support between children with similar conditions or experiences, and friendships.
• Helps to prevent regression and maintain, so far as possible, development and learning, especially for infants and for those children who may be overwhelmed by what is happening to them, or whose treatment requires restrictions in movement or confinement to isolation rooms. 
• Enables them to regain a sense of control and to maintain their sense of self-esteem and confidence. 
• Provides a medium for expression of feelings, through creative activities (playdough, clay, paint, etc) – and unstructured play.  This may help to reduce frustration and aggression.
• Through attentive listening and observation of children’s play, hospital play specialists and others can gain an understanding of the child’s perspective of what is happening to them and clarify any misunderstandings, e.g. the child who thought he had a tuna in his tummy, because he didn’t know the word ‘tumour’.  Such play is important for siblings too, who may have little understanding of what is happening and why.
• Through play, children – even very young children – can express preferences and make choices, e.g. whether dolly would like her medicine from a syringe or a spoon.
• Almost in all cases of hospitalization, children undergo invasive medical procedures. Play may help young patients become familiar with such procedures and learn exactly how they are carried out, so as to reduce their fear and help their adaptation. 
• By ‘playing through’ such procedures on toys, they can be supported to develop coping strategies.

What is a play specialist?

Hospital Play Specialists use individualised therapeutic strategies to support children, young people and their whanau with health care experiences.  There are programmes in most NZ hospitals. Most hospital play specialist services also incorporate early childhood education services, licensed and part-funded by the Ministry of Education.

The Starship Foundation is a charity which fundraises for various initiatives at Starship Children’s Hospital in Auckland. Amongst their projects is support for the hospital play specialist service there, as can be seen in this video : https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=999328107142406.

We also want to shine the light on the Hospital Play Association Aotearoa New Zealand. Their Vision and Mission is to promote coping and play throughout our communities.

The HPSAANZ supports the development of standards, frameworks and opportunities for learning that enable continued growth of the hospital play specialist profession.

Keep up the amazing work and mahi! 🙂

Resources:
https://www.hospitalplay.org.nz
https://www.kidshealth.org.nz/importance-play-your-child-hospital
https://www.cdhb.health.nz/Hospitals-Services/Child-Health/Documents/Going%20to%20Hospital.pdf
https://eej.ac.nz/index.php/EEJ/article/view/38
https://www.nzcer.org.nz/system/files/2018%20Blackwell%20report%20RobertsonFinal.pdf
https://www.pillars.org.nz
tpk-childrenofprisonersdata-2011.pdf