Objectives
The project aims to help child patients and their families cope with the difficult challenge of hospitalisation through visits by Docteurs Rêves (Dream Doctors), professional artists employed and trained by Fondation Théodora to provide specialised visits by clowns to a growing number of children in paediatric hospitals. Hospitalisation can be a source of anxiety for children who are obliged to separate from their parents and friends and remain in a place allowing little opportunity for distraction and fun. Laughter helps the children and their families cope with the difficult challenge of hospitalisation. The Dream Doctor becomes a special friend, listening and making the children smile, inventing games or magic tricks that allow them to dream and fantasise and so to become aware of their identity as a child rather than a patient.
Activities
From 2009 to 2013 Fondation Alta Mane supported weekly individual visits by two clown doctors to the paediatric oncology ward of the Inselspital hospital in Bern.
Partner
Fondation Theodora supports the activity of Dream Doctors, professional artists trained to work in a hospital environment, who provide concrete support to children and their families in coping with the difficult challenge of hospitalisation through play and listening to their emotions. The artists involved in the Dreams Doctor program receive continuous training, in the artistic, psychological and therapeutic domains, in order to guarantee an optimal collaboration within the hospital and the respect of specific codes of conduct.
Information
From 2009 to 2013 Alta Mane supported Fondation Théodora at the Bern paediatric oncology hospital and from 2014 to 2015 in five hospitals in the Ticino Canton. As of 2016, Fondation Alta Mane is supporting the work of Dream Doctors in two hospitals in Turkey.[/fusion_tab][/fusion_tabs]
