A day dedicated to recognizing their importance within a stressed family unit. Counselors will lead workshops age specific age appropriate workshops up to and including the teen years. A guest speaker will host a strategy session for parents.
Siblings of children affected by rare disease are the ones who can often feel neglected. Frequent hospital visits leave siblings stuck with caregivers or they are hauled along to endless doctors appointments. Exhausted parents do their best to make siblings feel loved and let them know they are as important as the sick child, but sometimes by necessity the focus drifts away from the healthy children in the family. The Rare Disease Foundation is hosting the first annual Sibling Appreciation Day focused on providing these siblings with a comfortable fun environment where they can share their emotions. The worry. The uncertainty. The jealousy. Many find it difficult to articulate their concerns without feeling that if they unload it will increase their parents’ burden.
The goal of the counselor led workshops is to promote the effective expression of feelings, to teach coping mechanisms and to enhance self-esteem. The aim is to help siblings adjust to living with a serious illness in the family and to reinforce their importance within the stressed family unit. Adults and young adult siblings are invited to listen to the guest speaker, Dr. Maru Barrera, a Clinical Health Psychologist from the University of Toronto and Sick Kids Hospital, to discuss strategies that can help the healthy siblings to verbalize their emotions and help the parents find ways to validate the experiences of their healthy and affected children.
For further details, including registration, please check the Event section of this website.
Saturday September 8, 2012
10am – 2pm
Chan Centre, BC Children’s Hospital