Guest Blog Post by Christine Clementz & Sarah Moeller, Starlight Children's Foundation
Being sick should not mean missing out on all the fun of childhood. That is why the Starlight Children’s Foundation embraces the principles of Positive Psychology to help sick kids simply be kids.
Ever since Starlight Children’s Foundation was established in 1988, it has worked closely with health professionals to develop programs that have a positive impact on sick children, adolescents and their families. Starlight’s philosophy has a strong alignment with Positive Psychology, believing that interventions should not simply focus on reducing adversity but must also consider steps to increase human strength, wellbeing and promote flourishing. As a result, Starlight is now recognised as an integral part of the Australian healthcare system.
A child’s illness impacts the entire family. Recognising this, Starlight’s programs focus on supporting and caring for the whole family unit, breaking the relentless cycle of pain, stress and trauma for sick kids and their families. Siblings of hospitalised children are often also impacted and might have to deal with having less attention from their parents and an increase in family responsibilities, hence Starlight ensures to engage siblings in all of its programs.
The Captain Starlight program features professional costumed performers and artists who arrive from “Planet Starlight” and land in the Starlight Express Room at paediatric hospitals, regional hospitals and in remote communities across Australia. When a child enters a Starlight Express Room, they open the door to a world away from hospital wards. The child is welcomed into a place where surgery, treatment, anxiety and fear and all things medical are left behind. These bright, medical-free havens are filled with fun, music, craft and games – a place where kids can forget about being sick and get down to the serious business of having fun. If children are too sick to leave their beds, Captain Starlight visits them in the hospital wards, spreading a healthy dose of fun and laughter.
By captivating children’s imagination, Captain Starlight provides a distraction from the reality of illness and treatment, helping children feel more positive about the hospital experience, improving their compliance with medical treatment and reducing fear and anxiety.
As highlighted by Positive Psychology founder Martin Seligman, human flourishing can be supported through building positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning and achievement (PERMA); a framework that underpins all of Starlight’s programs. The Captain Starlight program provides children with a safe space to build wellbeing through activities such as collaborative art, performance shows, music, dancing, fun competitions, computer games, and themed arts and crafts. In 2014, Starlight undertook a literature review, analysing 154 international studies which discussed specific activities used in Starlight programs. It provided evidence about their effectiveness of improving the wellbeing of children and young people. The study highlighted that Starlight activities build wellbeing by creating positive emotions such as fun and laughter, providing distraction from pain and boredom, encouraging and enhancing social interaction, assisting with identity formation and building self-esteem. Within the walls of the Starlight Express Room, children are free to truly be themselves. It is a place where they can feel empowered and reassured in knowing that their condition is not who they are.
Embodying this work is one of our regular Starlight children - Jasmine loves dancing, arts and crafts, and is a keen animal lover. The vibrant seven-year old was a regular visitor of the Starlight Express Room when she was undergoing intensive chemotherapy for Leukaemia. The Starlight Express Room and the Captain Starlights were a source of distraction helping Jasmine to escape the stress and pain of chemotherapy and improving her overall hospital experience. Jasmine’s mum Vanessa said Jasmine and the family never would have gotten through Jasmine’s treatment without Starlight. “Jasmine’s reward after having her chemo was to be able to go up to the Starlight Express Room at the end of the day,” she said. “And if she was too sick, I could call the Captain Starlights and they’d come down to the ward with some activities for her. It worked really well.” Jasmine loves playing in the Starlight Express Room with the friends she’s made there. She’s spent hours and hours playing princesses with the Captain Starlights, laughing and being silly just the way she should. Because in the Starlight Express Room, she isn’t “Jasmine who has cancer”, she’s “Princess Jasmine”! She isn’t defined by her illness – she’s just a normal kid having fun, and she can forget all about doctors and tests and being in hospital. In fact, it’s still a bargaining chip that Vanessa can use when Jasmine needs to go back to Sydney for tests and check-ups, even though, thankfully, she is now in remission.
By actively helping children build on these five PERMA constructs, Starlight programs enhance the wellbeing of seriously ill kids, adolescents and their families. Starlight also ensures that the principles of Positive Psychology extend to our other programs, such as Livewire, our program for hospitalised teens; Starlight’s Healthier Futures Initiative where Captain Starlight joins healthcare clinic teams to help kids in remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities; and Starlight’s Wishgranting program.
For additional information, please visit https://starlight.org.au/ or contact Sarah Moeller, Research & Evaluation Manager on (03) 9468 2014 or via email (impact@starlight.org.au).