In 2015, I began my clinical internship as a music therapy and counseling student at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). I remember feeling excited and concerned as I entered that massive hospital for the first time.
For around 9 months, I worked at CHOP with the child life department, helping kids in the oncology and cardiac intensive care units. My main focus was on addressing threats to attachment through prolonged hospitalization. This work became the groundwork for my master’s thesis and my first peer-reviewed publication. The lessons I learned during my internship still affect my daily practice. I was blessed to have an incredible supervisor who taught me lessons that dramatically affected my personal practice and influenced some of my best decisions regarding my clinical practices right after graduation until today.
A little over nine years later, I entered again, this time to present our game Legends of Lorem to the CHOP Child Life team as a possible tool for use in their programs to help children cope with the challenges and trauma of hospitalization. I am pleased and honored that I was able to return to this wonderful hospital with my wife, who has been co-developing Legends of Lorem with me.
We met with 25 professionals for one hour. We discussed why we feel Legends of Lorem will be a good option for group and individual treatment of children experiencing the high stress of extended hospitalization. Among that team of therapists and child life professionals was my supervisor, Patrick, who was instrumental in giving us the opportunity to present our game to CHOP.
This is just the beginning of our work here, only the introduction to a story. I hope to engage many of these fantastic people in our training program at Roll Play and Grow next year so that they can begin using Legends of Lorem with the wonderful kiddos at CHOP.
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