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Psychosocial Services & Support Programs

Psychology
   Psychoeducational Testing
   Neuropsychological Testing
   Individual Psychology
   Support Groups
       Parent Support Group
       Off-Treatment Parent Support Group
       Spanish-Speaking Parent Support Group
       Grandparent Support Group
       Sibling Support Group
       Adolescent Support Group
   Guys' Night Out
   End-of-Life Supportive Program & Bereavement Groups
   Parent-to-Parent Outreach
   Faces of Hope
   Powerful Me
   "Been There, Done That" Lecture Series

Child Life Program
   Play Therapy
   Music & Art Therapy
   Horticultural Therapy
   Strings of Strength

Social Worker
   Financial Issues

School Re-Entry Program

Individual Psychology

The Center's psychosocial team meets regularly with individual patients and family members, including parents, grandparents and siblings in the patient clinic, the hospital or at the patient's home.
The Psychosocial Team at Winthrop's Cancer Center for Kids fosters a sense of community and promote the healing process through fun, after-hours activities (family days, holiday parties, the spring Walk-A-Thon) and a variety of art projects. In addition, Many family members of patients - knowing that we do everything possible to normalize their lives while we care for their children - return the kindness by helping to advise families of newly diagnosed patients.

Support groups

The Center's psychologists also run numerous support groups, including:

• Parent Support Group, which meets monthly and is designed to provide a supportive therapeutic group environment where parents with children who are being treated for cancer meet and share experiences and concerns.
• Off-Treatment Parent Support Group, which addresses parents' concerns and anxieties after treatment has ended, and facilitates adjusting to the identity of a recovering family.
• Spanish-Speaking Parent Support Group, a supportive psychotherapy group, facilitated by a bilingual staff psychologist, and designed to meet the needs of Spanish-speaking parents as they adjust to the experience of having a child treated for cancer.
• Grandparent Support Group, a forum where grandparents of a child being treated for cancer can express and share their fears.
• Sibling Support Group, which addresses needs of brothers and sisters of children with cancer. These children have an opportunity to express their fears, frustration and anxieties, as well as have these feelings normalized. Facilitated by a staff psychologist, groups are organized by age and gender.
• Adolescent Support Group, which was designed to address age-specific concerns of adolescents being treated for cancer. These groups are organized by gender to discuss topics such as physical changes (i.e., losing hair), existential issues, concerns related to perceptions of same-sex peers as well as the opposite sex and academic pressure during treatment.
• Guys' Night Out, a group that encourages fathers of children in treatment to have an informal and fun place to meet and express thoughts and concerns. The group is structured around a fun activity, such as cards and pizza dinner.
• End-of-Life Supportive Program and Bereavement Groups facilitated by our psychologists. Provides the critically and terminally ill child with an honest relationship with which to say the necessary words of goodbye. Children who are dying rarely speak in direct dialogue about their fears and wishes. The psychologists in our center allow the dying patient to speak symbolically, through poetry, storytelling technique, and metaphor. When a death has occurred, our psychosocial staff provides bereavement groups in a separate building for bereft parents and siblings to share their experiences and feelings in a safe and supportive manner.

The psychosocial team also runs the following programs:

• School Re-entry Program: Children undergoing treatment for malignancy are frequently unable to attend school for a prolonged period of time, and often become fearful about their return to school due to their change in appearance, prolonged absences, loss of contact with classmates, fear that they are unable to academically keep up, and lack of desire to leave the safety of their home and parents. Our psychosocial team members provide ongoing counseling to patients on an individual as well as group basis, in order to help children address and overcome their fears. Upon a child's initial diagnosis and with a parent's consent, our psychosocial team is in contact with the child's school to facilitate at-home schooling/tutoring. This begins the process of an on-going relationship between the school, hospital and family. Prior to the child's school re-entry, our psychosocial team, led by a psychologist, social worker and child life specialist, join one of our nurses to meet with the school faculty. This provides an opportunity for school personnel to hear an overview of the child's disease and treatment plan, to discuss events and treatments prior to school re-entry, anticipated school attendance, changes in physical appearance, child's reaction to re-entry, how the child and their family have coped thus far, medications which may affect school performance, transportation/mobility considerations, energy level and ability to attend a full day, physical education restrictions, and precautions to take concerning contagious diseases. The goal of these on-going discussions is to educate the school personnel as to the impact medications and the illness experience have had on the patient and the family, as well as to educate the staff about the cognitive and developmental level of understanding that peers of the student may experience about their illness. In addition to demystifying the illness experience, advances in medical technology have extended the life span and survival statistics for individuals with cancer. This has led to an increase in neuropsychological, cognitive, medical and psychosocial long-term issues. It is the goal of the school re-entry program to mitigate, and perhaps prevent, these long-term issues. With an appropriate knowledge base about a child's diagnosis and possible medical/psychosocial sequelae, schools can provide necessary supportive services, accommodations to learning and educational resources that may assist the child in his/her school experience and extend beyond into the vocational realm.
• Parent-to-Parent Outreach: The Center utilizes a special training curriculum, accompanied by supervision from a staff psychologist, to prepare parents whose children have already completed treatment, to become mentors. It also acts as an outreach to parents of newly-diagnosed children.
• Faces of Hope: Adolescent females currently receiving treatment and their mothers meet with young women who were diagnosed when they were adolescents, and who are long past treatment. They have the opportunity to see that life goes on after cancer treatment. As part of the program, the young patients receive a "face of hope," learning makeup application and tips for caring for their inner and outer selves from make-up artists and yoga instructors.
• "Powerful Me" $5,000 grant received from Bear Necessities Pediatric Cancer Foundation to incorporate our Faces of Hope program, with other elements of self-care, including massage, yoga, makeup application and instruction on relaxation exercises.
• "Been There, Done That" Lecture Series: Led by a former Cancer Center for Kids patient, this cancer survivor shares his insights and experiences during and after cancer treatment, and demonstrates to current patients and their parents that life does exist after treatment for cancer.
• The Stephen R. Hall Strings of Strength program: Affords patients a unique opportunity to document and honor their experiences along the arduous road of treatment and beyond. It is a chance for children to tell their stories using colorful beads as meaningful symbols of specific procedures they have undergone. With each bead added to the string, the children gain a deeper appreciation of what they have accomplished and develop a sense of ownership over their experiences.

Testing

• Psychoeducational Testing is provided as needed, to help with academic placement and school issues. The Center's psychologists act as liaisons to the schools when academic concerns need to be addressed.
• Neuropsychological Testing Referrals are indicated when patients display signs and symptoms of intellectual compromise, cognitive, memory, learning and/or neuro-behavioral dysfunction.

Child Life program

With the generous help of the Miracle Foundation, the Child Life Program has expanded rapidly to address the psychosocial concerns that accompany health care experiences.

Through play and other developmentally appropriate mechanisms, Child Life helps meet the unique emotional and developmental needs of children and teenagers. As the Center's Child Life specialists learn more about the children, they help prepare them for what lies ahead. Such preparation helps patients cope with hospitalizations, treatments and other medical procedures, some of which can be painful or frightening.

Additionally, the Child Life specialist teaches patients relaxation techniques and visualization to help them feel more in control of their environment. The emotional support provided enables the child, as well as family members, to normalize their lives as much as possible.

Child Life Therapeutic interventions, such as medical play, are used to help give children a greater sense of familiarity and mastery over a threatening situation. These activities are particularly important for young children who may not be able to communicate their distress in any other way. They include:

• Non-directed exploration of medical equipment
• Procedural preparation and accompaniment
• Developmentally appropriate education
• Dramatic play with situations encountered by children re-enacted
• Music & Art Therapy
• Horticultural Therapy
  Funded by Fidelity Investments, the horticultural therapy program helps relieve anxiety and frustrations through a "Nurture with Nature" approach. The children also have a lovely potted plant to take away from the experience.

For more information, please call (516) 663-9400.

Social Worker

Financial Issues

The Cancer Center for Kids provides social work services to patient/families experiencing problems in social and/or emotional adjustment. The Social Worker at the CCK:

• Assists patients/families with personal, environmental and social difficulties, in accordance with professional standards and practice. Utilizes casework, group work and/or community organization methodologies to meet the needs of the patient. Works collaboratively with interdisciplinary staff, both internal and external to the organization. Acts as an advocate for patients and families to obtain appropriate internal and external services.
• Conducts and organizes a comprehensive psychosocial assessment. The assessment is the process that assists the social worker in identifying patient and family strengths, coping styles and problem areas within the context of their oncologic, social, financial, cultural and psychological milieu.
• Enables the family to integrate the medical, social, emotional and family dynamics of the disease/treatment into the current contact of their life situation.
• Provides therapeutic interventions aimed at adaptation throughout the continuum of cancer therapy.
• Provides counseling and support services to each patient/designee experiencing difficulty in adjusting to an altered physical status and/or changing psychosocial needs.
• Collaborates with community organizations and businesses including schools, parent groups and financial institutions regarding childhood cancer and its impact on patients and families.
• Consults and supports interdisciplinary colleagues involved either directly or indirectly with the case and treatment of pediatric cancer patients and their families.
• Is knowledgeable and compliant with Social Services Department policies.
• Keeps monthly statistics, which reflect activity, volume and outcome.
• Participates in educational and professional activities.

The Social Worker actively works with patients in our Long Term follow up program, the only survivorship health program on Long island where comprehensive follow-up care is delivered in a quiet and relaxed atmosphere. All the resources of the program are directed toward meeting the special needs of the survivors and their families.
The Social Worker is also an integral member of our team that helps children with our School Reentry program which helps young patients get back into a regular school program. The psychosocial team helps address the child's academic and social concerns and offers counseling to patients on a one-to-one basis as well as in group sessions. The team is also available to assist and or lead classroom discussions on patient's diagnosis, treatment and psychosocial issues.

For more information, please call (516) 663-9411.