The Secrets of Storytelling to children in hospital
Learn storytelling skills to develop a quick and easy rapport with children using our FREE 30-minute online training course
Storytelling can be a simple way to break down communication barriers. This free, 30-minute online training course will give you the skills to create an instant connection with a child, putting them more at ease, even in the most traumatic of circumstances.
Drawing on 10 years of experience
Since 2010, Read for Good has provided a professional storytelling service to children in hospitals across the UK. It’s not just about entertainment: our research evidences that a visit from our storyteller makes a child feel less anxious, more relaxed, and happier overall. Families feel the benefits too.
Because our storytellers can’t be in each and every hospital or medical setting, we want to share some of their storytelling secrets so that any professional who works with children in hospital can learn how to create stories and, in turn, an easy rapport with each child they encounter.
The training is provided completely free of charge, made possible by the support of our generous donors – the Katie Bradford Arts Trust and the Hospital Saturday Fund, to whom we are incredibly grateful.
Who is the training aimed at
This free training is suitable for anyone working with children in a medical setting – from porters to paediatricians. It is particularly ideal for anyone who is not confident in their interactions with children or anyone who wants to improve the overall experience for the child in their care.
What does it do
The training will help you to understand the power of stories in a clinical encounter with a child – whether it’s to help put the child at ease, distract them from their situation, or to help draw out clinical information that can inform your treatment. You will feel more confident in your ability to interact with young people of all ages, and you will learn easy-to-use tools that will enable you to quickly develop an easy rapport with a child.
What are the outcomes / Why you should do it
- Establish a good rapport
- Gain the trust and confidence of a young patient
- Give the child some much-needed control within a clinical interaction
- Give a child tools to better express what they are feeling or what has happened to them to aid diagnosis
- Reduce the patient’s anxiety and stress (which in turn aids diagnosis and treatment)
- Reducing the carer’s anxiety and stress
- (Reducing your own anxiety and stress!)
- Normalising clinical practitioners, medical equipment and the medical environment for a child
All of which will lead to an improved clinical encounter for you and for them.
How to access the training
- The training is around 30 minutes long in total
- Click the orange button below to register for the training
- You will be emailed a unique link to the training film immediately
- Watch the training film in your own time
- At the end of the training, you will be asked to click a link to complete a short questionnaire
- On completing the questionnaire, you will be emailed a certificate and the course summary
Read for Good thanks our generous funders who made this training possible – Katie Bradford Arts Trust and the Hospital Saturday Fund.
This training course was created with the help of many contributors, but above all, we want to thank our special band of storytellers whose tales and experiences have inspired the training, helping to empower everyone who works with children to have the confidence to use stories to improve the experience for everyone.
