Objectives

The paediatric art therapy workshop aims to improve the quality of the hospitalisation experience of children and young people at the paediatric cardiology and cardiac surgery centre of the I.R.C.C.S. San Donato Milanese Hospital. Specifically, it intends to give the child patients and their parents space to express their emotions before and after surgery and contain their anxiety.

Beneficiaries

Approximately 60 patients aged 3-25 on the hospital’s paediatric cardiology and cardiac surgery ward. The activities often also involve their parents.

Activities

AICCA runs a workshop at the San Donato Milanese Hospital for children and adolescents with congenital heart disease to enable them to express their emotions relating to their pathology and treatment and contain their anxiety. The individual and group activities take place from Monday to Thursday in the mornings and afternoons and include collage, heart drawing, disease representation, playing with medical equipment, drawing up a charter of rights for hospitalised children, creative biographical writing, playdough, embroidery, chromotherapy and music, puppet making, photography and personalisation of medical records. In addition, the association staff also take the art therapy activities onto the ward for the benefit of bedridden children and young people. The project is run by a professional team of psychologists, psychotherapists, peer counsellors and an artist and has an excellent reputation within the department, both among the patients’ families and among the medical staff, who habitually recommend the workshop to families when the children are admitted.

Partner

Associazione Italiana dei Cardiopatici Congeniti Adulti (AICCA)

The Italian association of adults with congenital heart disease (AICCA) is an association of doctors, psychologists and patients established in San Donato Milanese in 2009 on the back of the experience of the paediatric cardiac surgery department at San Donato Hospital, to provide psychological and legal assistance, counselling and information to patients, family members and researchers.

Website

http://www.aicca.eu/cosa-facciamo/i-nostri-progetti

Information

Fondation Alta Mane supported the project in 2010 and 2011. Thereafter, the project has been supported by Fondazione Alta Mane Italia.[/fusion_tab][/fusion_tabs]