February 16, 2022

Texas Children’s furriest team members paraded through the halls of the Heart Center at the Medical Center campus to help make it a “pawsitively” lovely Valentine’s Day for our cardiology patients and their families.

Therapy dogs Elsa, Bailey, Pinto and Pluto brought holiday cards, festive beaded necklaces and even a few kisses to children throughout Legacy Tower, including stops to visit the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU) and Adult Congenital Heart Program.

Six-year-old patient Kyleigh Ward said she was very excited to see her best friend Bailey during the special Valentine’s Day parade. Kyleigh has been hospitalized at Texas Children’s for nearly 150 days awaiting a much-needed heart transplant.

“We love the dogs,” said Kyleigh’s mother, Briancca. “It was very therapeutic to see them come around and spend time with the families. … I’m glad Kyleigh had a good time. I had a good time, too.”

The four golden retrievers are the heart of Texas Children’s Pawsitive Play Program, which is designed to enhance the emotional well-being of patients and families in the hospital. Along with Angus at West Campus and Cohen at The Woodlands campus, the dogs are specially bred and trained to work full-time as service dogs in a pediatric setting alongside our child life specialists.

“The Child Life Heart Center team and Animal-Assisted Therapy team came together to make the dog parade happen, and I’m so happy it went well,” said Victoria Ramos, child life activity coordinator.

“My role is to bring normalization and play to patients and families while they are in the hospital,” she said. “Bringing in the AAT dogs makes the job even more special. … What could be more fun than a parade where we come together and create fun memories for patients and their families?”

January 12, 2022

On December 30, Texas Children’s patients were transported in the comfort of their rooms to the world of Encanto! The Child Life, Patient Experience and Biomed teams collaborated to make this special movie premiere a reality. Here’s how.

The idea for the event was sparked in late summer, during Pixar Week – when all of the Pixar movies are promoted as a way for fans to connect online and relive their favorites. This special week is part of Texas Children’s partnership with Starlight and Disney to televise Disney Plus content on CCTV. The three teams’ desire for our young patients to experience the excitement around newly released movies as well as regular content got them thinking about how to make that possible.

Patient and Family Services Director Katie Kalenda Daggett worked with Disney Studios to secure permission for Texas Children’s to premiere the next new Pixar movie coming out – Encanto – on the CCTV network in patient rooms. This started the ball rolling for the three teams to put together the big event! Also, “this first-time agreement with Disney to show one of the movies for a special event in addition to bedside and in activity/playrooms is something we hope to be able to do more of in the future,” said event lead, Child Life Services Gaming Activity Coordinator Marty McMahon.

The teams were innovative on how to create a community environment where each patient would have the opportunity to “be a kid” and socialize. According to McMahon, “A ton of work went into bringing this premiere to life for patients…we made a true production of everything leading up to premiere day, with songs produced by the Music Therapy team for weekly Music group, and flyers designed and printed for day-of distribution to patients with a summary about the movie and show times.”

Premiere day featured hand-delivered Encanto-themed toys and four showings throughout the day, in patient rooms, two in English and two in Spanish, with subtitles for both.

“This was a really fun day for all, and good way to connect in a collective way,” said Child Life Services Manager Kari Lown. “It was a real perk to provide real-time Disney magic in the way of this movie so that our patients could participate in one of the latest trends and all of the excitement about Encanto at the same time as their families and everyone else in the world,” she added.

December 28, 2021

The Texas Children’s Creative and Therapeutic Arts Program organized its first “Be Like Molly Mae” Camp: Hope for the Holidays, Dec. 6-10, with activities all week, culminating in a musical production featuring patient actors and patient-made decorations.

This donor-funded camp provided patients with opportunities to interact with the program’s music therapy, art therapy and media production teams to create the visuals and perform in the musical focused on hope for the holidays. Donors Jill and Andy LeBlanc have provided Texas Children’s with many gracious donations in honor of their daughter, Molly Mae, who benefited greatly from the Child Life program. They have made donations to music therapy, created a nursing scholarship, and are now funding this camp so patients can experience the same Creative Arts therapies Molly Mae did, and feel the happiness, hope and love she sought to spread to everyone at Texas Children’s.

Patients experience many benefits from participating in Art Therapy, Music Therapy, and Media Production all year long in addition to events like the camp, including:

  • Relaxation, pain management and coping skills for adjusting to illness/hospitalization
  • Opportunities for creativity and verbal, non-verbal and emotional expression
  • Mood improvement
  • Practicing fine and gross motor skills through various activities
  • Confidence and resilience building
  • Increased social interaction with peers
  • Healthy problem-solving and adaptive skills
  • Fostering of peer support and a sense of community in the medical environment
  • Improvement of cognitive and sensory-motor functions
  • Legacy-building and memory-making opportunities
Leading up to the premiere performance

Camp week was full of music, art, and media activities for all patients, with options for them to come to the Child Life Zone and participate, or tune in on ZTV and complete activities in their rooms. Patients collaborated with the music therapy, art therapy and media teams to write songs, make characters and decorations using clay, paint and other materials, and write the script for the show. Music therapists, an art therapist, and media producers also visited patients in their rooms throughout the week to provide individualized assistance and support.

Even the smallest patients and their families were involved! NICU patients and infants in Legacy Tower’s heart center made footprint crafts that were used as decorations during the show.

And, action

Patients participated in a dress rehearsal on December 9, and the final performance on December 10. The musical centered around Heath Wave, a weatherman who used his “weather re-arranger” to create a heat wave in Texas because he didn’t grow up celebrating the holidays, and didn’t understand what could be so special about them, including snow! The rest of the characters worked together to convince Heath to let them have a snowy day for the holidays by telling him all about their holiday traditions, what they love about this time of year and the importance of hope and joy.

More about Molly Mae and the camp in her namesake

Molly was diagnosed with Autosomal Recessive Polycystic Kidney Disease prior to her birth. She battled kidney and liver disease valiantly for four years, four months, and 24 days. Molly was a smart, funny and loving little girl who made friends everywhere she went. She loved her dog, Dobby, her cousins, her Texas Children’s family, and most of all, her mom and dad. Molly was a beloved fixture at the hospital. The doctors, nurses and clinical support staff were her best buddies and biggest supporters. Molly will forever be remembered as a bright light and an example of hope and love.

When asked about the inspiration for “Be Like Molly Mae” Camp, music therapist Marial Biard explained, “building on hope and love, the Creative and Therapeutic Arts Program team launched the camp, deciding that it would be best to combine all three modalities − music therapy, art therapy, and media − into one final product (the musical) to show how all three creative mediums work well together and provide many diverse opportunities for patients to participate in.”

Future plans include organizing this camp at least once a year to continue honoring Molly’s legacy and promote Hope for the Holidays. The team plans to make camp even more accessible to patients by expanding it to other units and providing Spanish translations.

If you wish to watch some of the performance, you can find it here.

March 15, 2021

At Texas Children’s, we know our patients are superheroes – and thanks to a new mural now on display at the Medical Center outpost of one of Houston’s favorite sandwich shops, so will our neighbors and friends in the local community.

The “Portraits of Courage” mural stretches across an entire wall at the Antone’s location on Fannin Street, featuring artwork drawn by our current and former patients. Inspired and guided by Texas Children’s Child Life Department, the young artists imagined themselves as superheroes to bring their colorful caped and masked characters to life.

The wide variety of drawings selected for the mural reflect the range of ages and ethnicities of the patients and families we serve, said Jake Rutherford of The Butler Bros, Texas Children’s creative agency.

“The idea for the mural came from our shared excitement about getting Texas Children’s Hospital patients to see themselves as superheroes,” Rutherford said, noting that the project was a collaborative effort between Child Life, Art Therapy, Antone’s and The Butler Bros.

“We wanted people visiting Antone’s to see that Texas Children’s patients are brave, capable and strong.”

According to our Child Life team, art helps our patients communicate about their world and express themselves without having to use words. The creative process can be therapeutic, providing a safe and developmentally sensitive way for children to navigate the hospital setting.

It also gives them a strong sense of accomplishment to complete their artwork, increasing their positive self-esteem and resilience even in the midst of medical treatments. Child Life team members said the experience gave one patient – in a clinic appointment following a bone marrow transplant – a time to reflect on how proud she is of herself for making it through.

Child Life specialists also noted that many of our patients were excited to be included in the mural and have a brush with fame. One young boy was “beaming” and “grinning ear to ear” when he learned his art would be displayed. Another patient told her art therapist that knowing her artwork is part of the mural gives her something to look forward to the next time she returns to Texas Children’s, where she’s been admitted for extended periods over the past few months.

Check out photos of the Portraits of Courage mural in the photo gallery below – and if you stop by Antone’s to see the artwork in person, consider ordering The Dr. Hotez One World sandwich while you’re there. The special banh mi is named for our own Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine and co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s.

In another partnership with Texas Children’s, Antone’s will donate 50 percent of the proceeds from the sale of The Dr. Hotez One World to the vaccine development center. The sandwich will be available through May 31 at all three Antone’s locations in Houston.

As Texas Children’s One Amazing Team, we have continued to successfully navigate and traverse the unprecedented times accompanying the Coronavirus. Our collective workforce has adapted to new norms and protocols in day-to-day workflows to ensure the ongoing safety of patients, families, and staff throughout the organization.

One of the new protocols that has become an integral aspect within staff’s daily routine is the screening process. As staff has received a unique, colorful wristband at the beginning of each work shift, many team members have begun collecting their wristbands. Inspired by this initial desire to reflect, commemorate, and make meaning of one’s experience as a frontline worker during this global health care crisis, Texas Children’s would like to expand the opportunity for support and reflection hospital wide.

Our two art therapists at Texas Children’s will be offering an opportunity to promote staff self-care, increase community, and decrease stress through art and creative processing. Within open studio art sessions, staff members will be able to create imagery on their wristband that expresses personal perceptions and experiences through expressive writing and art making. This individual wristband art will later be collaged into the shape of the Texas Children’s Logo.

The art making experiences will be held from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Friday, March 19 and Friday, March 26, on the fourth-floor bridge between Wallace and Legacy Towers. If you are interested in participating, our art therapists encourage you to be saving and collecting your wristbands for the collaboration. See you there!

January 11, 2021

As Texas Children’s One Amazing Team, we have continued to successfully navigate and traverse the unprecedented times accompanying the Coronavirus. Our collective workforce has adapted to new norms and protocols in day-to-day workflows to ensure the ongoing safety of patients, families, and staff throughout the organization.

One of the new protocols that has become an integral aspect within staff’s daily routine is the screening process. As staff members have received a unique, colorful wristband at the beginning of each work shift, many team members have begun collecting their wristbands. Inspired by this initial desire to reflect, commemorate, and make meaning of one’s experience as a front-line worker during this global health care crisis, Texas Children’s would like to expand the opportunity for support and reflection hospital wide.

Two art therapists at Texas Children’s will be offering an opportunity to promote staff self-care, increase community, and decrease stress through art and creative processing. Within open studio art sessions, staff members will be able to create imagery on their wristband that expresses personal perceptions and experiences through expressive writing and art making. This individual wristband art will later be collaged into the shape of the Texas Children’s Logo.

If you are interested in participating, our art therapists encourage you to be saving and collecting your wristbands for the collaboration. Please stay tuned for further communication on dates, locations, and details for this staff member self-care opportunity to be provided at the beginning of 2021.

December 21, 2020

Every year during the month of December, our Texas Children’s Staff Ukulele Choir, led by the hospital’s music therapists, brings holiday joy to patients and staff by caroling throughout the hospital. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, the group is not able to sing together for others, so they decided to come up with a different way to spread holiday cheer. With the help of the Child Life Department’s Media Producer, Ashby Gleditsch, the choir was filmed playing the carols as a group, and then each member individually recorded their vocal tracks in the Kids Own Studio.

“We really hope that someday soon we’ll once again be able to sing as a group all across the hospital, but in the meantime, we hope that these songs bring some light and joy into everyone’s hearts this holiday season,” said Alix Brickley, Music Therapist, Neonatal ICU.

To view the Care-O-Lings, click on the links below:
Part 1: Here We Come A-Caroling and Deck the Halls
Part 2: Twelve Days of Christmas
Part 3: Jingle Bells, Auld Lang Syne and Jolly Old Saint. Nicholas
Part 4: Silent Night, Up On the Housetop and, We Wish You a Merry Christmas

To view the entire video, please click here.

The videos will also be shared on our Instagram account @TCHPeople and Twitter @TCHCareers starting today through Friday, December 25.

A special thank you to our carolers for spreading holiday cheer!
Alix Brickley, Ashby Gleditsch, Marial Biard, Amy Jeppesen, Nick Ryan King Magdoza, Michaela Schenkel and Michael Way.