I truly believe I am so very blessed to have found myself at this incredible organization. I just felt the urge to write about Wonders & Worries, because it is such a big part of my life and where I want my career to go. My "job" there is more like a calling really. It doesn't even feel right to call it my job. It is my calling. I work as a child life assistant at Wonders & Worries, a non-profit in Austin, Texas that provides professional therapeutic support to help children cope through a parent's illness. Being a child life assistant means that I provide assistance in various ways to the child life staff, who provide therapeutic psycho-social support to the children that come to Wonders & Worries (more on what that means in a little bit). I have been there since June of 2013, and am completely in love with what I do!
Wonders & Worries does a lot of those same things but was created to provide services for children of adult patients (in this case, the parent is the person in the family who is sick). Ms. Meredith Cooper and Missy Hicks saw a need for this organization in 2001 when they, as child life specialist in the children's hospital, were continuously called over to the adult hospital when a parent was newly diagnosed with an illness. And so, Wonders & Worries was born after lots of hard work. The role of a child life specialist at Wonders & Worries is to help the child by educating them on their parent's illness and side effects of medicines, preparing them for their parent's surgery/procedures, providing ways to express themselves emotionally, and finding coping techniques to help them navigate through this tough time in their lives. Yea, I know it's amazing. I can say that child life specialists are angels, not just because I love the profession, but because I experienced their kindness when I was hospitalized as a teen.
W&W provides individual sessions with children, support groups, and parenting support (speaking to a child about their illness can be difficult for parents). And all of these services are free to families! We also have bilingual child life specialists, which is great for our Spanish-speaking families.
As a child life assistant, I take care of supply needs (which means I get to do arts and crafts shopping, etc.). That's right. I get to shop for arts and crafts as part of my job. You can be a little jealous. :) I also help facilitate some support groups, so I get to work with the children as well! One of the coolest parts is that I also coordinate our family fun events, which means I get to do a lot of special event planning and volunteer coordinating. Child life assisting at W&W has a lot of fun coming in from all over the organization. :)
Lastly! I just love the profession of child life. I am in love with what I do and I feel so blessed to be allowed to do it. When I was hospitalized for the second flare of my illness, I was afraid that I was going to have to give up my child life assistant position or that I was going to be let go (my biggest fear was losing what I love to do), but thankfully everyone was so understanding and caring. And now, I continue to do what I love. And I will continue to prepare myself to become a child life specialist (as soon as my immune system allows me to go back to volunteering at the children's hospital). I am only more motivated to learn and develop my skills in working with children. I hope to be with W&W for a long, long time and I feel that I am running off an adrenaline rush and am just ready to do anything for this organization that I love so much.
I hope you guys have also found your calling somewhere, somehow. I would love to hear about it! I'm sure I'll be talking more about W&W on my blog, so be prepared.
This has been Maria reporting. Over and out. :)