Assisting Children with Terminal Illnesses in the Umberto I Hospital

Project location: Italy, Rome
Project start date: December 2007 - Project end date: December 2008
Project number: 2007-09
Beneficiary: ALMA SALUS

This project, co-sponsored by the Nando Peretti Foundation, is dedicated to children assistance (from 5 to 15 years old) who suffer from a terminal illness. The assistance will be given inside the pediatric oncology department, the pediatric diabetic department, and pediatric cardiology department of the Policlinico Umberto I (University la Sapienza) in Rome, Italy.

Doing so, the patients will receive a qualified intervention from a team of psychologists who will help children patients and their relatives to manage the stress connected to the medical situation inside the hospital, as well as to help the socializations among patients, by bettering the quality of life during the permanence in the hospital.
The activities consist in a first approach (six weeks) with the children and their families, in order to know each other and to know the hospital spaces where the activities will be done. After that each patient will receive a specific program of activities that will consist in inter-active, expressive, creative activities such as educational games, recitals, painting lessons and a program of psychological support for themselves and their families.

The project, initially approved for the year 2007, has been extended to 2008 and 2010. [2010-16]