Giggle Doctor visits for children in hospital

Thank you for choosing to support our Giggle Doctor programme through GlobalGiving. At the Theodora Children’s Charity, we believe that all children deserve laughter. By combining music, play and storytelling, Giggle Doctors improve wellbeing and bring magical moments to children facing huge challenges with their health. Last year, our 25 Giggle Doctors visited more than 33,000 sick and disabled children. This would not be possible without your very generous support. 

During their visits, our Giggle Doctor visits aim to:

• Reduce distress and anxiety
• Increase opportunities for play in the healthcare environment
• Improve wellbeing

The children are not just spectators but participants in the experience and every child that wishes to be visited is visited. It is not always about laughter, sometimes the focus of the visit might be on music, magic or storytelling.  At other times a few bubbles may be what is needed or perhaps just a balloon left at the foot of the bed. The interaction is always led by the child and each Giggle Doctor is highly trained to be sensitive to the child’s needs and their individual situation.

“The Giggle Doctors provide laughter and escape from the hospital environment for not only the children but their families too. Recently a child was transferred here from another hospital so was in an unfamiliar hospital but was visited by a Giggle Doctor who had seen them previously in another hospital. This provided them with great reassurance and helped them to settle much more easily”. Hospital Staff Member

Measuring the impact of your support

We work hard to develop the amount and range of feedback we collect to measure the charity’s impact and we are committed to providing the best possible service that we can. Our online survey is open for feedback from parents and guardians all year round. We also collect feedback from the hospital staff and parents during our Impact Focus Days. Here are some of the results:

• 100% of parents/guardians believed that the Giggle Doctors had a positive effect on their child
• 71% of parents/guardians believed that Giggle Doctors reduced stress and anxiety for their children whilst in hospital.
• 75% of parents/guardians believed that the Giggle Doctors increased opportunities for play in hospital. 

“The Giggle Doctors are like a special treat and they are really good at getting through to the kids. They make a massive difference.”  Parent.

"We met Dr Whoopee today! What an amazing Giggle Doctor!!! Thank you for brightening up our day. My son was very fearful of being in hospital and in a lot of pain. Dr Whoopee distracted him from the pain, had him laughing and helped him have a positive visit to a hospital. She definitely helped take his worries away!” Parent

How your support helps children like Alfie

Alfie's Mum recently got in touch to tell us how our Giggle Doctors made Alfie smile whilst he was in hospital.

"Alfie was 5 when he was diagnosed with burkitts leukaemia. He spent nearly 4 months on the ward at Addenbrooke's Hospital.

We met Dr I-spy during our first week on the ward and she made us all smile and laugh which we hadn't done for a long time. As the weeks went on Alfie got to know when the Giggle Doctors were coming and would be ready and waiting for them to come. As soon as he saw Dr I-spy he would run up to her and make jokes with her.

The Giggle Doctors are so important for not only the children but the parents as well. They make it all seem so much easier and make you remember that it's ok to laugh when things are rubbish.

We can't thank you all enough for what you do". 

Thank you

Thank you so much for choosing to support our Giggle Doctor programme and helping us to bring fun and laughter to poorly children in hospital, hospices and specialist care centres. Our work really wouldn’t be possible without the generosity of our supporters like yourself.  

Our 2017-2019 strategy is to increase the number of children we are able to visit from 33,000 children a year in 2017 to 43,500 children a year by the end of 2019. Your support is helping us to work towards this goal. 

If you have any questions or would like to talk further about our work, please feel free to get in touch.