In the first quarter of 2023, we have had three major campaigns running with some of our wonderful corporate partners in stores across South Australia and the Northern Territory.

We’d like to say a big thank you to all the staff involved, and to everyone in our community who supported the corporate campaigns in their local stores. Funds raised will help us brighten lives and support brilliant care at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital and its associated Health Network.

Here is a wrap-up of the amazing campaigns with Coles and Curing Homesickness, Costco and BIG W:

Coles and Curing Homesickness

Staff at Coles who helped the Firle store reach the #1 spot in the state for fundraising during the Curing Homesickness campaign!

Through the Curing Homesickness initiative, which partners with paediatric hospitals across Australia to get kids home from hospital sooner, Coles customers could purchase a $2 donation card at the checkout during March to raise funds for sick kids and their families.

Thanks to the Coles community, almost $90k was raised in SA and NT stores!

SA’s Firle store ranked first in the state and fifth in the country which is an amazing effort. Overall, more than $1m was raised nationally in just two weeks.

If you missed out on grabbing a donation card, you can still help by purchasing any ‘Mum’s Sause’ product at Coles anytime throughout the year with part proceeds supporting the WCH Foundation.

Funds raised through the campaign and ‘Mum’s Sause’ sales will contribute towards our new Cocoon Program – a dedicated clinic for babies under 12 months who are both medically vulnerable and in foster care, or at risk of entering foster care.

Costco

Costco Adelaide’s, Jo, with TK Bunny at a VIP night.

Costco Adelaide held three VIP shopping nights where non-members could experience a shop at the store for a donation to the WCH Foundation.

For those who were already Costco members, they could purchase a token throughout March and April and make a donation to the WCH Foundation.

Thanks to Costco staff and customers, over $20K was raised!

Thank you to everyone who came out and said hello at the VIP nights, to all of Costco’s existing members who kindly made a donation, and to the wonderful Costco staff for their time and efforts.

BIG W

TK Bunny with BIG W staff members who helped raise over $40K.

In just over four weeks, BIG W stores raised over $40K for the WCH Foundation through their Bunnyville token campaign.

Customers could purchase a bunny token when they shopped at their local BIG W in the lead-up to Easter.

The Bunnyville walls in stores throughout SA were absolutely full of tokens. TK Bunny enjoyed a road trip to many of the stores and felt right at home surrounded by so many bunnies!

Thank you to Big W staff and their generous customers for their continued support.

Learn more about our corporate partnerships

We celebrated the launch of our extraordinary new 30-metre window mural at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital (WCH)!

The WCH is now home to a new extraordinary public art piece, the Mirdilyayanthi window mural, transforming the physical environment and providing hope and inspiration for patients and families.

The installation is an extension of the exhibition, Mirdilyayanthi: to shine bright, presented by the Women’s & Children’s Hospital Foundation (WCH Foundation) Arts in Health Program as part of the Art Gallery of South Australia’s (AGSA) Tarnanthi 2021 festival.

Five Aboriginal artists were invited to create work that responded to the ‘shine bright’ theme. Grace Bennett, Elizabeth Close, Shane Cook, Thomas Readett and Jacki Saunders created individual pieces that were simultaneously an expression of their inner-self and an act of love for their Aboriginality and country. Elizabeth composed the elements from the individual artworks to transform them into this window mural and Dominic Guerrera then wrote a wonderful essay to accompany the project.

The Mirdilyayanthi window mural in the level 2 corridor of the Women’s and Children’s Hospital.

Dance of light

WCH Foundation CEO, Jane Scotcher, says, “The window mural is a gift to the Hospital community. We are very proud to partner with AGSA to extend the Mirdilyayanthi exhibition and allow more people to experience the work of these talented artists.”

The beauty of the mural is further enhanced by the dance of light and shadow transposed onto the corridor as the sun changes position in the sky.

“We’ve seen children chasing the cast shadows, jumping over sections of the patterned light. The mural is bringing joy to those engaging with the space,” Ms Scotcher says.

Nici Cumpston OAM, Artistic Director, Tarnanthi Festival of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art, says, “AGSA are very proud to have supported these five incredibly talented artists to create the works of art for the exhibition Mirdilyayanthi: to shine bright at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital for Tarnanthi in 2021.”

“Through Tarnanthi, we enable artists to be ambitious and the Mirdilyayanthi window mural is a public artwork that will continue the legacy and celebrate the lasting impact of this important project.”

The launch of the Mirdilyayanthi window mural. Left to right: Jane Scotcher (CEO, WCH Foundation), Phil Robinson (WCHN Executive Director, Corporate Services), Cathy Leanne (Manager, Aboriginal Strategic Partnerships Aboriginal Health Division), Samantha Yates (AGSA Producer of Tarnanthi), Nici Cumpston OAM (AGSA Director of Tarnanthi), artist Elizabeth Close and writer Dominic Guerrera.

Shining bright

The artists and partners of this project hope the Mirdilyayanthi window mural creates a space to ‘take a breath’ and allows a moment to find some calm in a busy health environment – a place to find some strength, to keep strong, and to shine bright.

Mirdilyayanthi: to shine bright is presented by the WCH Foundation Arts in Health Program in partnership with AGSA and the Women’s and Children’s Health Network (WCHN).

Learn more about the mural.

The Women’s and Children’s Hospital (WCH) has received a brand new piece of equipment to support brilliant care across the Hospital campus.

Funded by a donor of the Women’s & Children’s Hospital Foundation, the $58,000 anaesthesia system administers general anaesthesia to paediatric patients and can be moved around the Hospital for use in the Michael Rice Centre for Haematology and Oncology, the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit and the operating theatres.

The new anaesthesia machine in the WCH. 

Astrid Lamont is Equipment Nurse Manager in Recovery and Anaesthetics, Surgical Services at the WCH. She says, “This machine is used on all ages and provides the ability to administer general anaesthesia, thereby allowing doctors to perform procedures and surgeries to enable patients to return to their best health.”

In the Michael Rice Centre, it is used with patients who may require chemotherapy, bone marrow biopsies or lumbar punctures (a medical procedure in which a needle is inserted into the spinal canal, most commonly to collect fluid for testing).

It is also used to provide anaesthesia for children unable, or too young, to remain still for undergoing diagnostic scans such as CT scans.

The machine allows these treatments to be done in the comfort and familiarity of the clinic or ward space they are used to, rather than the patient needing to be taken to the operating theatres.

Astrid says, “We know that doing the procedures in the clinics or wards means the children avoid coming to the operating theatres and are with their parents in the clinic/ward setting immediately post the treatment.”

“This reduces stress, and possibly hospital trauma, experienced by young patients.”

Learn more about the equipment and facilities we fund

When we think of ‘research’, we often picture a scientist in a lab peering down a microscope – but it can look very different. Research can involve testing new and innovative ways to encourage health behaviours in the community, such as getting vaccinated, particularly in people who are at higher risk of severe disease from infections.

Research funded by the Women’s & Children’s Hospital Foundation, and published in JAMA Pediatrics, a high-ranking journal of the American Medical Association, trialled the use of SMS reminders, called ‘nudges’, to encourage flu vaccinations in children and adolescents with chronic medical conditions.

FluText-4U

The Flutext-4U project, led by Professor Helen Marshall and carried out by a team of researchers including Women’s and Children’s Hospital and SA Health staff, found that the addition of SMS ‘nudges’ sent directly to parents helped improve flu vaccination rates in children and adolescents at high risk of severe flu.

The authors have now been successful in receiving a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) grant to co-design ‘nudges’ to improve the uptake of influenza and COVID vaccines in pregnant women.

Professor Marshall says, “We are currently testing these ‘nudges’ using gold standard methods and if successful these ‘nudges’ could be rolled out across the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, hospitals interstate as well as nationally to protect pregnant women and children and reduce hospitalisation from severe flu.”

This FluText-4U project is a great example of how research can lead to simple solutions for big problems, that can easily be embedded into our healthcare system to improve health outcomes and save precious healthcare dollars.

Find out more about the impact the Women’s & Children’s Hospital Foundation has on the health of South Australian women, children and families through our investment into health and medical research here.

This public artwork is presented by the Women’s & Children’s Hospital Foundation Arts in Health program in partnership with the Art Gallery of South Australia (AGSA) and the Women’s and Children’s Health Network (WCHN).

The WCH Foundation asked Kaurna and Italian poet, curator and writer, Dominic Guerrera, to provide a reflection about the Mirdilyayanthi Window Mural project…

Mirdilyayanthi to shine bright was originally a 2021 exhibition presented by the Women’s & Children’s Hospital Foundation Arts in Health Program in conjunction with the Art Gallery of SA Tarnanthi festival. The exhibition aimed to create an experience of hope and inspiration for young parents as they begin their new journey into parenthood and for other patients receiving care at the hospital.

Five Aboriginal artists of high talent and integrity were invited to create work that responded to the theme. Grace Bennett, Elizabeth Close, Shane Cook, Thomas Readett and Jacki Saunders created individual pieces that were simultaneously an expression of their inner-self and an act of love for their Aboriginality and countries.

The artworks created for the exhibition have now been taken and transformed into one large piece, Mirdilyayanthi Window Mural, a public artwork that seeks to enrich the environment of the Women’s and Children’s Hospital and extend the life of the original exhibition and the messages within, allowing more visitors of the hospital to experience the work and hopefully have a positive impact on them too.

The power of art should never be dismissed, as it comes from the core of our humanity.

For us Aboriginal peoples not only is art important and informative, it is also an act of healing.

Our songlines connect us to our country, our dances reaffirm the importance of the animals and the environment around us and our paintings can take us through deep cultural journeys. Intrinsically tied to our identity, our art is multifaceted and nuanced, but always an act of spiritual beauty.

It’s important to note that being an artist doesn’t require you to have a particular skill set, but it does require you to have the guts to be vulnerable and be willing to share that. The five artists whose work makes up Mirdilyayanthi Window Mural should be commended for their artistic courage, but also for taking up the challenge to cross paths with each other and combine their personal work into a beautiful piece of collaborative work. This unity is a reflection of how we as Aboriginal people exist, within our families and communities, our nations and cultural groupings, always together, always brave.

Whether you’re here because you’re starting a new family, you are healing or grieving, I hope that you also feel the power of this work and the power of these five incredible artists.

Mirdilyayanthi, something that we, as Aboriginal people know how to do so well.

We shine bright when we stand strong in culture, when we stand in the reciprocal love of country.

We shine bright like the hope within our young parents, when we show love for each other.

We shine bright when we hold our babies and nurture them, when our grandmothers purse their full lips and nod ever so slightly in our direction.

These Mirdilyayanthi artists shine bright like the collective colours that paint a sunset across the Kaurna sky.

Their collective wealth now lives in this place.

Their warmth, once seen, will be felt and held by every family that visits this artwork too.

– By Dominic Guerrera, Kaurna and Italian poet, writer and curator.

The artists

Each of the artists that contributed their images to the Mirdilyayanthi Window Mural started making art at a young age, developing their art career by maintaining a strong work ethic and creating their own unique style. All share a keen drive to keep learning and mastering their craft through mentors, peers and their family stories.

Grace Bennett, Ngadjuri people

Ngadjuri artist Grace Bennett sustains her strength and creativity through her connection to the land and culture.

“I often yarn with my family about their experiences and stories they share, as well as talking about my painting ideas and incorporating my own stories into my artworks. I use it as fuel.”

Elizabeth Yanyi Close, Pitjantjatjara/Yankunytjatjara people

To create the imagery in the mural, Elizabeth, a Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara woman, explores the concept of ‘wealth’ and challenges the notion that the landscape is only the sum of its parts.

“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people view country not as something to exploit, but rather something profound and immeasurable, something ancient and invaluable, something that shines far brighter than any precious metal.’’

Shane Cook, Wulli Wulli / Guwa (Koa) People, Queensland

Shane is a proud Wulli Wulli and Guwa descendant from Queensland and a long-time advocate for supporting young Aboriginal people. Shane spent time in hospital as a 12-year-old and remembers his mother by his side, teaching him their family stories while making small dot-paintings. Shane wants his art to provide hope for young patients, and to let them know they are only in hospital for a short time.

“As an Aboriginal we need to keep going – there is no finish line.”

Thomas Readett, Ngarrindjeri people

Ngarrindjeri and Arrente artist, Thomas, uses self-exploration and personal narratives as opportunities to reflect on the wider world, through themes of love, loss, and grief. For the imagery in the mural, Thomas reflected on past trauma and the act of rebuilding as he searches for the light.

“Making artwork for me is compulsory to the way I live. It is a therapy to help me work through things and keeps me staying strong.’’

Jackie Saunders, Kaurna / Kokatha / Ngarrindjeri / Wirangu people, represented by Tutti Art

Jackie Saunders is a Ngarrindjeri and Wirangu artist, who describes herself as “the daughter of a saltwater woman and a desert dwelling man”. Jackie’s work draws on her strong sense of family and culture, it reflects her connections to both the human and natural world. It explores different weathers – internal and external – and the shape and movement of land, light and water.

“I’ve got my own style. It’s colourful. It comes from the heart. My mum and my dad live on through me’’

Take a breath

This public artwork is aesthetically dependent on the generosity and compositions of the five artists. We would like to thank Elizabeth for her support in composing the elements to form a whole – the Mirdilyayanthi Window Mural

The artists and partners of this project hope the Mirdilyayanthi Window Mural creates a space to ‘take a breath’ and allows a moment to find some calm in a busy health environment – a place to ‘find some strength, to keep strong’.

Read the Mirdilyayanthi exhibition brochure 

We’re excited to launch the Women’s & Children’s Hospital Foundation Bloom Research Program, which will see a $10 million investment over five years into health and medical research to help create healthier South Australian mums, babies and children cared for by the Women’s and Children’s Health Network (WCHN).

While we’ve traditionally funded smaller seed or pilot research projects addressing areas of maternal and/or paediatric health, our recent independent review of our research strategy has resulted in a decision to double our research funding through our Bloom Research Program to further improve outcomes and enhance the quality healthcare provided by WCHN. With a 100% increase in research investment, and a targeted approach to investing in areas of most need within paediatric and maternal health, we believe we can make big impact for South Australia’s little people and their mums.

Bloom Research Program

Bloom Research grant applications are now open for evidence-based research projects with the potential to deliver positive, genuine impact on maternal and paediatric health and wellbeing. The grants will be distributed to research projects focusing on one of the following priority areas:

• Healthy mum, flourishing bub by reducing pre-term births and/or low or high birthweights;
• Healthy body, healthy mind for little people by investigating the prevention, early detection or intervention and/or enhanced treatment of childhood diseases and conditions such as:
  • Preterm birth and low/high birthweight
  • Anxiety, depression and suicide prevention
  • Brain and central nervous system cancers
  • Cardiovascular defects and diseases
  • Asthma

WCH Foundation Research Program Manager, Dr Chelsea Mauch, says the priority research areas are based on independent analysis of the maternal and paediatric health burden in South Australia and research capacity within WCHN, the University of Adelaide, SAHMRI, University of South Australia or Torrens University.

“We want to fund critical health and medical research that will deliver big thinking for little people and their mums for generations to come,” Dr Mauch says.

The Fleming family

Nicole and Shannon Fleming are all too familiar with the Women’s and Children’s Hospital. Their twin girls Isla and Eloise were born at 29 weeks. Eloise weighed just 480 grams, fitting into the palm of her dad, Shannon’s, hand.

A 17-week scan identified Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome and preceded a complicated journey that saw four-week-old Isla pass away unexpectedly the day after heart surgery in Melbourne, and Eloise surviving against all odds.

“Eloise is tiny, but mighty,” Nicole says. “She’s the toughest little girl and continues to defy the odds. We didn’t realise that there was such support within the Women’s and Children’s Hospital from the moment we walked through those doors to have our first scans.”

Shannon says they couldn’t have gotten through it all without the support of the amazing hospital staff, particularly their specialist and the team in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).

“When we think about the hospital, it’s where we had the worst experience and the best experience at the same time,” Shannon says.

“Further research into preventing and supporting premature births, among the many other conditions, would help so many mothers, children and families like ours.”

The Fleming family in NICU. 

The Bloom Research Program is made possible by the generosity of our community who share our goal to improve the health and wellbeing of women, children and their families.

Find out more about the Bloom Research Program

Just after settling into his first year of school, Archer was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia – a type of cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow.

“He was quite well so it was a shock,” his mum, Jacquelyn, says.

Archer had a rash that kept coming and going, and his GP ordered some blood tests to help with what they thought would be an allergy diagnosis. On a Sunday afternoon, Jacquelyn received a call from the GP saying they needed to come back in first thing the following morning, and that was when they found out there were some big anomalies in Archer’s blood count. He was referred to the Women’s and Children’s Hospital Michael Rice Centre for further investigation and then treatment.

“In the space of a week we went from normal family life, Archer in school in reception and just getting settled into that as a routine, and then it was a world upside down moment in terms of finding out that he had leukemia,” Jacquelyn says.

Each year in South Australia, approximately 70 school-aged children are diagnosed or relapse with cancer or are treated for chronic haematological disorders. These kids often have to spend long periods away from their school and friends while they undergo treatment.

Archer and his pet dog, Zelda.

Back to school with Archer

During his treatment at the Hospital, Archer had to spend a considerable amount of time away from his own school, but attended Hospital School SA and had lots of support from the wonderful teachers there to continue his learning.

Now, six-year-old Archer is now transitioning back to his school with the help of the School Liaison Nurse Program run by the Michael Rice Centre and Hospital School SA, with funding support from the WCH Foundation.

The School Liaison Nurse is an experienced oncology clinical nurse who works with a patient’s school to make their transition back as seamless as possible. A few sessions have been run with the teachers at Archer’s school to help educate them on his situation, and Jacquelyn says everyone involved in the program has been brilliant.

“Archer has a port embedded in his body under his skin and that’s where his treatment is delivered. At a session, the liaison actually bought one in and said to the teachers, ‘This is what it looks like inside his body.’ The teachers could hold it and look at it and that was a really cool thing for them to know what it is and what it actually looks like,” Jacquelyn says.

“It was a really good opportunity to go through some of the medical information and how that will impact Archer’s education for the short term, but also the longer-term considerations as well from a chemotherapy point of view.”

“The liaison read through a very detailed plan of Archer’s treatment. She was able to tell the teachers quite a lot of detail so that they understood at what point he would be able to come back to school. It was a really thorough session.”

“I just felt so supported. They were all working together, they all complement each other, and the teachers know who to go to if they have further questions. It really took a bit of weight off my shoulders knowing that everybody was on the same page.”

Archer practising his literacy with a lovely note to Hospital School SA (reads: I love seeing my teachers at Hospital School).

Oncology School Liaison Nurse Program

Renae Hogarth (pictured in banner) is the current School Liaison Nurse at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital. She coordinates the program and acts as a conduit between hospital and school for families, advocating for patient-centred care.

The School Liaison Nurse Program includes oncology patients from kindergarten, right through to year 12, and is now extending to support patients with sickle cell disease and working towards including patients with thalassaemia as well.

Thanks to our corporate partner, Amazon, we are able to help fund this amazing program at the Hospital helping kids get back to school.

Some of the most vulnerable babies in South Australia will now have access to coordinated care thanks to the new million-dollar Cocoon Program, funded by the Women’s & Children’s Hospital Foundation (WCH Foundation).

Dr Keir with a baby representing *Ava.

Cocoon Program

The WCH Foundation Cocoon Program is a dedicated clinic for babies under 12 months who are both medically vulnerable and in foster care, or at risk of entering foster care. This is the pilot program’s first year.

Babies and their caregivers will receive support from a specialised team in one clinic rather than care-givers needing to attend multiple appointments on different days. It is hoped that this approach will improve the overall care experience for families and care-givers by meeting an infant’s emotional, physical, and mental health care needs.

Dr Amy Keir is a Consultant Neonatologist at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital and the lead Neonatal Paediatrician who will be part of the Cocoon Program.

She says, “The program aims to provide a cocoon around babies in foster care so that they can easily access a coordinated team to meet their healthcare needs.”

The Cocoon team comprises a specialised Clinical Coordinator, a Neonatal Paediatrician, a General Paediatrician, an Infant Mental Health Clinician and a Senior Physiotherapist.

“The idea is that all the health care providers are together and can look after the baby in partnership. We’re also able to build connections with all of the other care-givers and providers that might be in their life,” Dr Keir says.

“The importance of the program is to provide one of the most vulnerable cohorts of babies in South Australia the highest possible coordinated health care in those critical early months of their life.”

“It allows us to identify if there are any developmental challenges or risks, and allows them to seamlessly access allied health services, as well as other services that may be more difficult to access from a community perspective or when care is disjointed.”

The addition of an Infant Mental Health Clinician to the clinic will be a first for the Hospital.

“People often don’t think about babies having mental health, but babies who have come from situations that may have been quite traumatic are at the most risk of challenges in this area, both as a baby and as they grow,” Dr Keir says.

“The opportunity to build this role into the clinic is incredibly exciting, and I’m confident it will make a significant difference.”

It is estimated that approximately 50 to 60 babies each year will benefit from this program and it will grow as the program expands.

“Babies in foster care remain at risk of attachment challenges, as well as a number of health care problems that might not be realised around the time of their birth,” Dr Keir says.

“I truly hope that through this coordinated approach and our ability to work together with care-givers and other care providers outside of the Hospital, we’re going to help give these vulnerable babies the best possible start in life and to prevent further complexities from developing down the track.”

Dr Amy Keir, Consultant Neonatologist.

Baby Ava

Baby Ava* is a newborn baby recently discharged from Women’s and Children’s Hospital into foster care as her birth parents are not able to care for her for complex reasons.

Her aunt, who is caring for her, was worried about her noisy breathing and feeding. Ava was seen soon after discharge by a dedicated healthcare team at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital – the Cocoon team. Her aunt found this reassuring as the Cocoon team was aware of her birth history, what happened during pregnancy for her mother and any health conditions she may be at risk of developing.

The Cocoon team cares for Ava in partnership with her aunt and Ava’s Child and Family Health Service (CaFHS) nurse to monitor her growth and development. She accesses Allied Health services at the Hospital quickly, and information is shared amongst her healthcare workers and other providers to allow them to work together to support her healthcare needs effectively.

Ava and her aunt access support from the Infant Mental Health Clinician as part of the Cocoon team. This further supports her aunt in caring for Ava, who is sometimes unsettled. Ava has a complex family background that can potentially impact her in complex ways. The Infant Mental Health Clinician supports her aunt in understanding how best to help her and provides support for any care transitions Ava may experience as a young infant.

A mother and baby representing *Ava and her aunt.  

Hospitals United for Sick Kids

The WCH Foundation has committed over $1 million of funding towards the Cocoon Program over the next three years.

Funds raised by Hospitals United for Sick Kids through the sale of  ‘Mum’s Sause’ products and donations cards at Coles, select bucket hats at Lowes, and Swisse multivitamins will contribute to the Cocoon Program’s cost.

Hospitals United for Sick Kids is Australia’s only national alliance of hospitals for children, foundations and paediatric services to help sick kids get home and back to the things they miss.

Dr Keir says, “We are potentially going to be able to reduce the chances of young infants needing to come into hospital. We’ll be able to coordinate their care closer to where they’re living, so they potentially don’t need to come into the hospital for additional investigations or checks of their health.”

“We can ensure that when they come in for their clinic visits, they get everything done simultaneously. So instead of having to come to the hospital across a number of days in one week, they can come for one morning or one afternoon.”

“There’s also the likelihood that we’ll be able to identify healthcare problems earlier and hopefully prevent needing to come into hospital. And if there is a situation where a young infant does need to come into hospital, they should be able to stay for shorter periods because they already have a team looking after them and ready to go for post-discharge follow-up.”

To learn more about how you can help, follow @hospitalsunitedforsickkids on Instagram.

*While names and images have been changed for privacy, this situation is very real and reflects how important your generosity is for supporting brilliant care for vulnerable babies.

Patients receiving end-of-life care at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital (WCH), as well as their families, have the opportunity to explore and express their emotions and communicate thoughts and feelings when they are unable to find the words through illness and into bereavement. Art Therapy is offered as an integral part of the Paediatric Palliative Care Service (PPCS).

What is Art Therapy?

Art Therapy is not just art making, but a therapeutic intervention. Aligned with the WCH Foundation Arts in Health program, Art Therapy uses a creative approach to healthcare and wellbeing.

Art Therapist, Lauren, says, “Our role is to support patients, siblings and families. We deliver services in the Hospital community, schools and in home visits. Every day can look different.”

Art Therapists help families to be able to talk about end-of-life and help them to understand what grieving might be like.

An Art Therapy session could consist of painting, collage, sculpting, clay, construction, movement, sound – anything that resonates with the person and their experience through creative expression, whilst processing with the support of the Art Therapist.

“Often there’s no end product, it’s a process,” Lauren says.

The process really empowers the child to have some choice and control in their situation, to be seen, heard and witnessed, not just as their illness, but who they are.

Art Therapists try to have the voice of the child in the process and bring that to the centre of care always.

Lauren says, “For children to be able to express their voice through art making processes, and in relationship with their therapist, really helps support and guide their care. While it may feel scary and ‘really big’ for the child, providing opportunities to express difficult emotions can support a felt sense of safety, choice and control which often leads to reassurance for the family.”

It can be hard for children to make sense of big feelings though, so Art Therapy helps to make meaning in a way that is easier to understand. Rather than relying on dialogue or verbal communication, Art Therapists try to find other sensory ways for them to express themselves.

Using art as a different way of expressing is more sensory and body-based and can change the approach. The process can be really freeing for many because it doesn’t have the limitations that people often have when trying to express something verbally

An Art Therapist’s role isn’t to fix things, but to sit with these feelings.

Lauren says, “A really incredible part of Art Therapy is that art supports holding the enormity of feeling scared around dying – feeling so overwhelmingly sad – and being with children and their feelings rather than us fixing.”

“I think children are so courageous and incredible to continue to show up and be able to express and process and really lead their family through the mess.”

“For many years, I’ve seen young people lead their family through diagnosis, through the illness, through death, and then how that continues to lead the family in bereavement is really special.”

Mitchell’s story

When Mitchell was 12 years old, he was travelling through the US with his family when things took a turn for the worst quickly and unexpectedly. Mitchell suffered a seizure and was admitted to hospital while his parents, Kylie and Scott, and brother, Lachlan, were left wondering what was happening.

Mitchell was medevacked back to Adelaide where he was diagnosed with a form of glioma, a highly aggressive brain tumour. He was placed under the care of the PPCS where his family were introduced to Art Therapy at the WCH.

Kylie was open to the idea, but Scott admits he was not as keen and Mitchell went immediately to, “No.”

The pair encouraged Mitchell to have a go though.

“So he did,” Scott says, “And he never really looked back.”

Lauren built up a wonderful relationship with Mitchell as his Art Therapist and would visit on a weekly basis. The sessions were led by him and how he was feeling on the day.

One of the memorable sessions for Kylie involved making a mess with a whole lot of shaving cream.

Kylie says, “Mitch got to the point that he really couldn’t move much other than his hands. So they did this massive shaving cream mess.”

“He’d said that he wanted me to come in, so I’ve come in there, and I’m looking at this mess, and Lauren is saying, ‘He wants you to be involved,’ so I’ve got my hands in it.

“It was really interesting though, because every time the shaving cream went over the edge, I was madly trying to put it back and make it all right and control it.”

“So, that was a bit of a ‘Well actually, I don’t have any control over this,’ realisation.”

A turning point for the family was understanding that Mitchell wanted the rest of his family to be immersed in the mess of his situation alongside him, which came out of an amazing Art Therapy session of throwing coloured paint around at each other in their backyard.

“For me, that was when it started to all make sense,” Scott says.

Kylie says, “In that situation, we were actually able to laugh.”

“That was a big message that we got out of that as well, that as hard as it is, we’re all in it together, we’re still going to find those lighter moments where we can enjoy the memories.”

The family say that not having to sit down and directly talk about what they were going through, but instead creating other ways for them to communicate with each other, helped make things easier.

“It was a conduit for discussions that were just really hard to have,” Scott says.

“Art Therapy was breaking down the really confronting things to talk about, and it gave Mitch a voice that he otherwise wouldn’t have had.”

“It gave us all a bit of a way to find a way through it and talk about it and communicate it without having to use words.”

“Art Therapy kept bringing us back as a family,” Kylie says.

Mitchell fought a tough battle with his cancer before passing away at age 13. In the time leading up to this, he worked incredibly hard with Lauren to create a poem and legacy bracelets for the people closest to him. These reminders of him mean everything to his loved ones now.

Kylie says, “I feel like he left feeling like he gave us his legacy, and we were able to show him through Art Therapy the love and the fact that we knew how hard it was that he was going through that.”

“He wanted to make sure that we were going to be okay. He went from this scared boy, thinking, ‘Why is it all happening to me?’ to then getting to acceptance and saying, ‘Well, now I need to know that everyone is going to be okay.’ That was his legacy.”

“It was a holistic approach to give him the opportunity to move through his emotions and to process them, and knowing he did that, even though it was hard, is what makes it okay for us now.”

Art Therapy expansion

The PPCS provides responsive, flexible and client-centred Art Therapy services to children and families experiencing a life-limiting illness.

In order to better meet the needs of the increased referral base, and to ensure the PPCS can provide equitable and responsive services, the Art Therapy service has been able to grow to meet this need with the help of generous support from the Roberts family and their ongoing fundraising efforts through Cycle 4 Sam and Challenge 21.

The second ‘Collab for a Cause’ event was a huge success and raised over $70,000!

‘Collab for a Cause’ is a night full of food and fundraising organised by Shannon and Nicole Fleming and the wonderful team at Lot 100 in the Adelaide Hills.

Collab for a Cause at Lot 100.

The Fleming family

Shannon is the Head Chef at Lot 100 and has lived experience at the Women’s and Children’s Hospital, spending nearly 100 days in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) with his wife and twin girls Isla and Eloise. Heartbreakingly, Isla passed away at four weeks of age after heart surgery.

Shannon and Nicole say, “No one knows what NICU is until you need NICU. NICU makes families and without them, we wouldn’t have the family we have now.”

Some of the nursing staff who cared for Isla and Eloise attended the Collab for a Cause event, showing their support for Shannon, Nicole and families like theirs.

Nicole and Shannon Fleming sharing their hospital experience with the guests.

‘Collab for a Cause’ making a big impact

The funds raised have been used to purchase a micro-preemie simulation doll and two monitoring systems to be installed in the isolation rooms supporting NICU and the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU).

The mannequin will be a valuable asset to the delivery of nursery education and to developing staff confidence and skills in neonatal nursing.

The mannequin will be the same size and weight as a 25-week gestation infant and will greatly assist in developing clinical skills and confidence in nursing staff who are learning how to provide resuscitation to very sick, small and fragile infants in a safe learning environment.

The monitoring screens will enable staff to interact with the monitoring systems within those rooms, without needing to physically enter the patient’s room, eliminating the unnecessary risk of infection.

These wall-mounted monitors will display patient physiological data, giving the clinician full capability as if they were at the bedside without any risk to patient safety.

Some of the amazing chefs and staff who made the night possible.

Thank you

We would like to say a huge thank you to guest chefs, Will Doak from Lost Phoenix Farm, Emma Shearer from The Lost Loaf, Kane Pollard from Topiary, Darren Robertson from Three Blue Ducks and all of the amazing Lot 100 staff who volunteered their time to make this incredible event possible.