Ulster Hospital’s artist-in-residence brings joy and recovery through art therapy to children in hospital

Transcript

00:00As part of our overall play service we use art a lot for therapeutic means as well and

00:06the benefits of using art and art materials and creativity just helps really promote the

00:13imagination in a child's play. Artscare provide artists that work in arts and health settings

00:19across Northern Ireland so we go into a lot of the hospitals and the day centres. Within the

00:24Ulster Hospital I work as an artist who will go to the bedside of the children

00:29and the aim of that really is to provide a wee bit of a distraction for the children whenever

00:34they're maybe waiting to go into theatre or come out of theatre and maybe in a wee bit of pain or

00:39discomfort so having something to focus on like the art materials and having a wee bit of a chat

00:44with them at the same time takes their mind off. Jill's service today with Freya has been

00:51really lovely. Luckily Freya's only here for a short term and you expect something like this

00:57to be really for like longer term patients so it's nice for Freya to have a bit of a distraction

01:03and some hands-on play without just being stuck to her iPad for her entire stay. We've had some

01:11lovely family pieces made with like siblings that have both been on the ward at the same time

01:17and then it's encouraged their parents to get involved and all of this continues to help

01:22reduce their anxiety but it also helps aid their recovery time. Just try to get right to the

01:28bedside so the the children don't have to to go anywhere and sort of feel relaxed there usually

01:33their parents are with them which is great and quite often the parents will get involved as

01:38well which is you know it's obviously a very stressful time for them too you know. We also

01:42have a dancer who would come in, the clown doctors come in, they're part of the arts care team

01:48which is great fun for the children and we have a storyteller that comes in

01:53and also all go into the sort of the bedside or down into this playroom area as well.