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The Healing Power of Play

Radio Lollipop believes in the healing power of play - providing smiles and laughter to children at a time when they need it most.

One in four children are admitted to a hospital before reaching age 14. Though some patients are short-stay, many have a recurring need for care and return repeatedly to hospital. Some who are terminally ill spend much of their short lives in hospital.

Radio Lollipop gives young patients a voice and a choice during their stay. While they can´t say "no" to taking their medicine or receiving treatment, they can request their favourite songs, win prizes and hear their own voices on the radio. Those activities give youngsters a haven of normality in the hospital day which in other respects is strange, different and often scary.

Values
Radio Lollipop believes that:

  1. above all else it should provide care, comfort, play and entertainment to a consistently high standard.
  2. it should be accessible, available and adaptable to meet the needs of sick children and their families in hospital and elsewhere.
  3. active volunteers supported by professional staff are its greatest asset.
  4. all its people should be trained.
  5. it must uphold the highest standards of ethics and integrity.
  6. it should work as part of the care team supporting the sick child.
  7. it should be fun for all involved.
Aims
Radio Lollipop aims:
  1. to develop Lollipop services for sick children
  2. to achieve the highest quality of service delivery though appropriately trained and supported volunteers.
  3. to develop its play and entertainment services for sick children in hospital and elsewhere.
  4. to promote the awareness of the importance of play for children in hospital.
  5. to develop co-operative partnerships with hospitals and other organisations with whom we work.
  6. to create the financial resources to achieve these aims.

Summary of a Radio Lollipop Volunteer

Radio Lollipop is an international organisation founded over 25 years ago to provide care, comfort, play and entertainment for children and young people, primarily in hospitals. The service to children and young people is provided entirely by volunteers who have been especially selected, and trained to make a child’s stay in hospital more fun and less frightening.

Each volunteer has a commitment to provide 2 hours per week of interactive play with children
using a comprehensive range of fun and interactive activities developed over the years by Radio Lollipop. As part of the armoury of activities in our “toy box” most of the hospitals where a Radio Lollipop service is provided have a radio studio, providing a unique child-orientated programme of interactive competitions, music, stories and games.

What qualities should a potential volunteer be able to demonstrate?

  • An enthusiastic, positive and outgoing personality
  • An interest in playing with children, of all ages and creeds, in an interactive way
  • An understanding of the benefits that constructive play can provide for a sick child and their siblings
  • The ability to be a dependable team player
  • An appreciation of the need to uphold the highest standards of ethics and integrity whilst within and without a hospital
  • The ability to meet the requirement to provide two hours of voluntary play each week.

Once appointed what might a Radio Lollipop volunteer be expected to do?

  • Attend the compulsory induction and training programme
  • Join a ward-based team and observe / participate in the play activities / games and competitions agreed as the theme for the evening
  • Assist with the production and development of themed play activities
  • Hand out prizes to winners of competitions (and those who deserve to be winners!)
  • Help with fundraising for the local station
  • Develop radio presentation skills
  • Join the local Station Management team and thus gain valuable management skills applicable to roles outside the charity

Radio Lollipop volunteers have a great deal of fun providing a valuable service to sick children and their families. The reward of seeing a quiet, withdrawn child return to a confident, happy child is immense and is something that our volunteers experience on a regular basis.

Radio Lollipop is exceptionally well regarded in the field of Paediatrics for the benefits that it brings to the recovery of a sick child and many volunteers have used the skills and experience gained through their voluntary work with Radio Lollipop to develop careers outside the charity in Radio, Public Relations, Nursing and many other fields.

Essential duties and responsibilities:

  • Help plan and create (or identify from archive sources) the weekly radio program your team will be using
  • Help plan and create the coordinating crafts, games and activities to be used in the weekly radio program your team will be using
  • Supervise radio studio programming while team is on-air
  • Help coordinate transportation for children to come visit the studio
  • Serve as host/hostess for children visiting the studio
  • Oversee play and activities in and around the studio
  • Bring crafts to children who are unable to visit the studio
  • Work with patients as necessary per direction from the Nursing and Child Life staffs
  • Assume responsibility for finding your own trained and qualified replacement if you are unable to work your scheduled shift
Non-essential duties and responsibilities:
  • Act as presenter/DJ during program
  • Assume leadership role for your assigned team
  • Assist with marketing and PR efforts
  • Assist with efforts to recruit guest DJs and special guests
  • Assist with training for new team members
  • Assist with fundraising efforts to support the Radio Lollipop programming efforts
Required qualifications:
  • Comfort with public speaking and other public roles
  • Enthusiastic, positive and outgoing personality
  • Interest in playing with children, including participating directly in the related arts and crafts, games and activities
  • Ability to encourage children to participate in the Radio Lollipop program
  • Dependable, responsible and detail oriented
  • Must be able to work as a member of a program team
Preferred qualifications :
  • Public speaking experience
  • Acting, music, dance and other performance experience
  • Previous radio and TV production experience
  • Experience working with and supervising children in varied situations
  • Bilingual skills
Physical demand and work environment:
  • Ability to move easily throughout the hospital and remain standing for extended periods
  • Ability to assist children as they move from their rooms to the studio
  • Some light lifting may be required

Radio Lollipop History
Radio Lollipop has an exciting history. It began in 1978 at Queen Mary´s Hospital for Children in Carshalton, Surrey. At the time Queen Mary´s was the largest children´s hospital in Europe with over 460 beds in 36 wards on a site covering over 92 acres. In addition to its paediatric cases the hospital was also home to many children with learning disabilities.

It took just over a year to raise funds, wire the wards, build the studio, recruit the team and get the very first dedicated entertainment service for children in hospital ready.

At mid-day on the 5th May 1979 the very first Radio Lollipop went on-air.

Following a successful first year an application was made to the International Year of the Child Committee for a grant to develop Radio Lollipop. The Committee were so impressed with the work of Radio Lollipop they agreed to provide a grant to enable Radio Lollipop to establish itself as a national charity, and to provide the special Radio Lollipop service in other hospitals.

Since that time there has been an international expansion. In 1985 the first Radio Lollipop outside the UK was started in Perth, Western Australia, at the Princess Margaret Hospital for Children.

From these beginnings the organisation has expanded further with services in America, Australia and New Zealand joining those developed in the UK.