Dr. Áine Connolly and Ms. Wendy Moynan from Tallaght University Hospital (TUH) Ireland share details of a new resource for adults caring for or working with a child or young person where an adult close to them has had a stroke.
Authors
Dr. Áine Connolly Principal Clinical Psychologist and Ms. Wendy Moynan Social Work Team Leader have worked in Tallaght University Hospital (TUH) Ireland for many years with stroke patients and their families. Through this work they have seen that “parents and other adults want to support their children and young people when a significant person in their lives has had a stroke”. However, they found that “many adults don’t feel confident about talking to their children about stroke and are concerned about how they are coping.”
Research
Wendy explains when a parent has a serious illness “children want to be given information as early as possible, to be able to ask question and to talk to someone who knows what is going on”. Wider family resilience research suggests that having good quality information about the parent’s illness is important for children. Research also suggests that children can remain a hidden and potentially high risk group for negative emotional and behavioural outcomes when someone significant in their lives has a serious illness.
The Resource
Áine and Wendy created the CHATS resource with the help of families who had children at the time of their stroke. It is designed for use in the acute hospital setting and aims to help adults to:
• Understand the importance and benefits of talking to children when a stroke happens.
• Feel more confident about starting these conversations.
• Explain what a stroke is to children in a way that is appropriate to their age.
• Explain what different people on the hospital stroke team do.
• Recognise, understand and respond to children’s emotional support needs.
• Maintain contact with the person in hospital and plan visits.
Who is it for?
The resource is for parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles or any adult who is caring for or working with a child or young person where an adult close to them has had a stroke.
Collaborators
The resource began as a quality improvement (QI) project under the skilful guidance of Mary Hickey, the QI Lead in TUH and evolved to partner with Alison Baker-Kerrigan of the Arts and Health Programme at TUH. Central to the development of the resource was feedback from families who had children at the time of their stroke. We used their lived experience and ideas about what would have helped alongside the research available to develop the text and images. They reviewed the draft text alongside our stroke multi-disciplinary team colleagues and feedback from both was used to inform the final content.
Aine says “we wanted the resource to be visually appealing and accessible to people with aphasia which would not have been possible without Alison’s involvement and expertise”. We were fortunate to receive funding from The Meath Foundation for an illustrator and graphic designer who created a set of images and integrated the text and images in a way that we hope enhances makes more accessible the key messages.
What has been the response?
Since launching in April of this year the response to the resource has been overwhelmingly positive.
How would you like to engage on this area of work beyond Ireland?
The resource is available on the TUH website via the following link and QR code
Chats-Booklet-October-2023.pdf
Hard copies of the booklet are being given to stroke survivors and their families in TUH and as it is a new resource their feedback is being sought via an evaluation questionnaire.
We could not find any similar resource targeted for the acute setting which aims to help adults support children at a time of stroke. Therefore, we are keen to disseminate it further both within Ireland and internationally and with the intention that more families and children can benefit.
For further information and to connect with the authors email: chats@tuh.ie
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