EP# 125 - Healing Hearts and Nurturing Young Lives with Michele King's Child Advocacy Mission
Apr 11, 2024Season 1Episode 125
"Cabo" Jim Schaller
When the walls of a hospital feel daunting, it's the touch of compassion that can turn a sterile room into a haven of healing. That's exactly what Michele King, Director of Child Advocacy Programs at Golisano Children's Hospital, and her team of Child Life Services specialists do every day. Our latest podcast episode is a heart-to-heart with Michelle, who unravels the intricacies of her role and the transformative power of child advocacy. She shares stories of resilience that will uplift your spirit, and she tackles the challenging yet crucial task of recruiting professionals who can gently guide children through their medical journeys. It's a conversation that promises to reshape your view of children's hospitals from places of sorrow to sanctuaries where hope thrives.
Celebrating the spirit of Southwest Florida, we also highlight the community's unwavering support and the magic of neighbors helping neighbors. Michele's dedication to nurturing the lives of little ones goes beyond the hospital walls and into the very fabric of our community. Join us as we acknowledge the unsung heroes and local businesses that embody what it means to be a good neighbor. Their stories of dedication and kindness are the threads that strengthen the ties of our neighborhood. Tune in to feel inspired, to learn, and to remember that every act of kindness has the power to echo throughout our community. And if you're moved to nominate a local hero, let us know—because it's people like you who make our corner of the world a better place.
Golisano Children's Hospital-Child Life Services Michele King 239-343-5890 michele.king@leehealth.org WEBSITE
When the walls of a hospital feel daunting, it's the touch of compassion that can turn a sterile room into a haven of healing. That's exactly what Michele King, Director of Child Advocacy Programs at Golisano Children's Hospital, and her team of Child Life Services specialists do every day. Our latest podcast episode is a heart-to-heart with Michelle, who unravels the intricacies of her role and the transformative power of child advocacy. She shares stories of resilience that will uplift your spirit, and she tackles the challenging yet crucial task of recruiting professionals who can gently guide children through their medical journeys. It's a conversation that promises to reshape your view of children's hospitals from places of sorrow to sanctuaries where hope thrives.
Celebrating the spirit of Southwest Florida, we also highlight the community's unwavering support and the magic of neighbors helping neighbors. Michele's dedication to nurturing the lives of little ones goes beyond the hospital walls and into the very fabric of our community. Join us as we acknowledge the unsung heroes and local businesses that embody what it means to be a good neighbor. Their stories of dedication and kindness are the threads that strengthen the ties of our neighborhood. Tune in to feel inspired, to learn, and to remember that every act of kindness has the power to echo throughout our community. And if you're moved to nominate a local hero, let us know—because it's people like you who make our corner of the world a better place.
Golisano Children's Hospital-Child Life Services Michele King 239-343-5890 michele.king@leehealth.org WEBSITE
Speaker 1:
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Cabo Jim.
Speaker 2:
Schaller. Welcome Good Neighbors. Episode number 125 of the Good Neighbor Podcast, estero. Today we have Good Neighbor Michele King from Golisano Children's Hospital and she is the Director of Child Advocacy. I could say that I've been practicing that Programs Welcome, thank you. Pleasure getting to meet you and understand a little bit more about what you do over there. Why don't we start off by you sharing kind of a high view of what's involved with what you do?
Speaker 3:
Sure Thanks for having me what's involved with what you do.
Speaker 3:
Sorry, thanks for having me as Director of Child Advocacy Program. I oversee two programs the Child Life Program, which are certified child life specialists who work in a children's hospital to help the children understand what's happening to them. They prepare them for procedures, accompany them to procedures, but they're not doing the procedures. They're helping children understand what's coming up so they're less afraid, and then they also in between treatments and procedures. They are the people that provide all of the fun activities and the volunteers and the visitors to help normalize the hospital environment while the children are here. In the Child Life Program we also have music therapists, we have a hospital school teacher and we have a patient technology specialist, and all of those are people that are necessary to helping children get better while they're ill.
Speaker 2:
And that's the important part, because, well you know, a lot of kids can be afraid of being in a situation like that, and making them feel more comfortable is very important to their treatment.
Speaker 3:
We want it to be not a scary place and the child advocacy program are child advocates who do injury prevention in the hospital and in the community. Health education encompasses our pediatric behavioral health piece, which is a program where we have educators that provide mental health first aid training in the community, trauma-informed care, and we have mental health navigators as well.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely, that's great. That's great. So how did you get involved in this?
Speaker 3:
Yes, well, I went to college to be a nurse, originally at University of Pittsburgh, and I went over to the Children's Hospital to do some volunteer work and I learned about child life specialists there, and they were not nurses, they were people helping the kids understand what's going to happen to them, and they were having fun in the playroom, and so I decided that was a much more enticing occupation. So I switched to the School of Child Development and then I did my internship at Johns Hopkins and I was a child life specialist. So I've been a child life specialist for close to 40 years and I've been here at Golisano for 30 years, and it's a privilege now to supervise all of the child life specialists.
Speaker 2:
I bet, very rewarding for a good career choice. So we all have some type of challenge Bible, but you have challenges finding the right people to work in this situation. Yes, we do.
Speaker 3:
Yes, we do so. Child life specialists need to have a bachelor's degree in child life or child and family studies, child development, and they have to complete a 16-week internship in a children's hospital's child life program. And so in our area we have some schools offering education as a major but not necessarily child development. So we offer an internship for students from all over the country who can come and do their internship here, and we kind of try to grow our own staff that way. Otherwise we have to recruit people from around the country to come and fill these positions when they become available.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely, and that's great that you do that. Internally, are there any maybe I want to say myths or maybe misconceptions that we can clear up for listeners involved around in what you do?
Speaker 3:
So I think that sometimes people think of the children's hospital as a sad place. How can you work at a children's hospital? It must be so sad. But I would say miracles happen every day here and that we have far more good days and a lot of joy and fun with our patients and helping them to heal and get better than we do sad days.
Speaker 2:
That's the important part. We all need happy days, absolutely so. Are you seeing anything that is maybe trending with what you're doing?
Speaker 3:
I would say that our mental health piece and the child advocacy piece is super important. Obviously, there's many children who are challenged with mental health have mental health challenges. Children who are challenged with mental health have mental health challenges and as a community we need to rally around that and we need to reduce the stigma of mental health, and I think that that is something that we're working very hard to do and also to provide services to these families that so badly need it.
Speaker 2:
Absolutely so. Are you from? You mentioned a number of different schools. Are you from Southwest Florida originally?
Speaker 3:
No, originally I grew up in the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania area and then my family my husband and my children, moved here about just about 35 years ago.
Speaker 2:
Wow, what made you pick Southwest Florida?
Speaker 3:
Actually my parents had moved from Pittsburgh to Fort Myers probably about six, seven years before we did and, and we would come here in February and just could not go back to Pittsburgh and scrape snow off our windshields. And so eventually it got the better of us and we said, what the heck, let's just, let's just make the move. So that was challenging, but a long time ago and we really never looked back. Eventually it got the better of us and we said what the heck, let's just, let's just make the move. So that was challenging, but a long time ago and we really never looked back. So we love Southwest Florida.
Speaker 2:
I agree. I agree. I was born in Wisconsin so I understand the cold weather and wanting to get away from that and never going back to that Absolutely.
Speaker 3:
It's nice to watch on TV.
Speaker 2:
That's about it.
Speaker 3:
It's nice to watch on TV. That's about it. It's pretty, the snow's pretty on TV.
Speaker 2:
Yes, yes, so, outside of work. I'm sure you probably don't have a lot of free time, but what do you enjoy doing?
Speaker 3:
Oh, yes, I enjoy gardening very much. That's my healing space is to be in the yard and to trim and putsy around in the yard, as we call it, and I also really enjoy sunsets in southwest Florida and I look forward to getting back to our beaches absolutely.
Speaker 2:
They're there slowly, but they are returning, and connecting with nature, especially down here, is very important yes. Is there one thing that maybe you wish our listeners knew about what you do that maybe they're not aware of?
Speaker 3:
I just think there's a lot of moving parts in a children's hospital that are very important to help our patients get better and to help our team work well together that when you drive by the Golisano Children's Hospital from the outside, people may not know of all the wonderful things that are going on inside, and so we always invite people. If they're interested and curious, they can call our foundation and have a tour of the hospital. But we have so much support in the community, from Girl Scout troops to individual children to other organizations who provide donations to us in the form of, you know, items and fun things for the kids, so we are very well supported by this community that we so appreciate.
Speaker 2:
And that is great. That's very important to have a good community around you. So, how would people go about if they wanted to help? How would they reach out to you?
Speaker 3:
help. How would they reach out to you? They could reach out to me. My email address is m-i-c-h-e-l-e dot k-i-n-g at leahealthorg and my phone number is 239-343-5890. And I could put them in touch with the right person. On my child life team, we have a person who is in charge of donations. As far as you know, physical items and things that people want to donate, and so, yeah, we get a lot of people who contact us and their groups want to do something for the kids, and so we can come up with some really creative ideas together.
Speaker 2:
That's it. That's it's all about helping the kids. Are there any last words you'd like to you know, share with our listeners? Are there any last words you'd like to share with our?
Speaker 3:
listeners. I think I'd just like to share how very much we appreciate our community, the support of our community, and we're pleased to be here for the children in our community so that they can stay close to home and get the care they need right here.
Speaker 2:
I love it. I love it, michelle. Thank you for being such a good neighbor, thank you for what you do for the children in Southwest Florida and I hope to see you on the community here soon.
Speaker 3:
Well, thank you for having me, Jim.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast, estero. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPEstero. com. That's GNPEstero. com, or call 239-296-2621.