Volunteers share their time and talent with pediatric cancer patients for at least two hours, once a week. The volunteer, in those two hours, should have been able to uplift the spirits of the patient and the caregiver. This is not always an easy task considering the patient and their family’s different personalities and background. Volunteers get frustrated when they can’t fully engage the patient or caregiver. Carol Tongco, Kythe Volunteer Program Coordinator, understands these frustrations, having been a volunteer herself for more than 10 years. And this is the reason why she created a training program composed of 3 modules to address the volunteer’s needs.
The first training module entitled “How do you build rapport with pediatric patients?” was held on April 28, 2018. Volunteers learned how to start an interaction with pediatric patients using story-telling techniques.
The second training module entitled “Bag of Tricks” was held on May 19, 2018 . Carol invited Antonio Delgado, a Magician, Tai Chi Master and Balloon Artist, as a resource person for this training. He taught the volunteers simple magic tricks which they can do with pediatric patients.
The last module was held on June 2 ,2018. The training module entitled “Coping with Difficult Situations in Hospital Volunteering” was an enriching discussion on the challenges of a being a volunteer. Attendees were a mix of seasoned and new volunteers. The volunteers appreciated this kind of open discussion for their issues and concerns to be heard.
Due to the positive feedback and evaluation, there will be more training sessions for volunteers. This is Kythe’s way of caring not only for patients and their families, but for volunteers as well.
