Two rooms at The Alex used by the paediatric psychology service have received some much-needed TLC recently, thanks to some Rockinghorse funding.
For children and families receiving care at The Alex, the impact on their mental health from the treatment they are receiving can be significant. But the paediatric psychology team are there to help.
The team provide psychological support to patients to help them through difficult diagnosis, treatment, and the long-term impact of dealing with a serious physical health condition at a young age.
The ten-strong team have a few clinic spaces within the hospital in which to see their patients, but two of these were in a really poor state of repair.
Meg Montgomery, one of the psychologists from the oncology team, explains more, “The rooms before were very bare and felt quite dreary. We had even sourced some of the furniture from the street, such as a table.
“We didn’t have any space for resources to be kept in the rooms, so we were ferrying them with us around the hospital and one of the rooms had an alarmingly red sofa which was quite small and didn’t feel very appropriate for adults to be sat on.
“It all just felt a bit thrown together and a bit or a shambles really. One of the parents even described them as grim. Essentially, they weren’t the best spaces for our patients to feel relaxed, comfortable and able to share their thoughts and feelings.”
So, the team put in a funding request to us to see if we could fund the refurbishment of these two clinic rooms on Level 10 of the hospital. And working with Grosvenor, an interiors specialist, these two rooms have now been completely transformed.
With new furniture, lighting and wall decorations, the rooms are now a much nicer space for the team to be able to provide their vital support sessions.
Meg adds, “Having a space that feels intentional helps people feel safer, more relaxed and ready to open up. And it now feels different to the rest of hospital as well, which can help separate it from the place where families go to get treatment.
“Whereas before it just felt like a bit of random space that we found within the hospital, it now it feels like a proper therapeutic space.
“And when people have had medical, particularly quite traumatic medical experiences, sometimes even just coming into the building itself can be quite triggering. So having a space that signals that this is a safe space, is really important; and we’ve had parents and children comment on how much better it feels.
“It’s made a huge difference to families and children’s sense of safety and comfort in these sessions, which really helps their outcomes in therapy, because people need to feel safe.”
Fran Masey-O’Neill, Projects Manager at Rockinghorse, is really pleased with the final results. She said, “Being able to fund improvements to the spaces within the hospital like this is really important as it makes a huge difference to the clinical staff who use the rooms and of course to the children and families being supported.
“We’re so proud when we see projects through to completion like this and we’re really glad that they will help Meg and the rest of the Paediatric Psychology Team with their important work.”
Thanks to all our supporters for helping us fund such important spaces like this for children’s hospitals across Sussex. To find out more about the projects we fund and deliver, take a look at our Projects page.
Here’s Meg showing us around the new clinic room:
