February 4th, 2022
To mark National Storytelling Week, we're highlighting the importance of our weekly Virtual Story Time, born out of the pandemic, it's now something we continue to run and is a highlight of the week for many of the families we look after.
 
This evening, we joined Katherine and Daniel to listen to Playmaker Stacey tell us three stories - here's just a taster of one of them....
 
 
Stacey describes how story time enhances our care for both the families we look after, and our care team...
 
Katherine is one of our most regular attendees and has only missed a handful of sessions over the last 14months….we think she should have a loyalty card scheme! Katherine loves stories from her childhood that she can recall and predict what happens next, her favourite book is The Tiger Who Came To Tea but we have to change the little girl’s name in the story to Katherine as that’s how it is read to her at home. 
 
We also had lovely Daniel, who always loves a good story, in particular he likes stories with a really good rhythm and Julia Donaldson are his favourite books. He's become a regular attendee along with Carers Andrew and Kate during their respite sit. They like to wind down with a story after a visit to the park first! Daniel really focuses towards the screen for story time, his carers often reiterate parts for him or add in key signs, he often gives fleeting glances back towards his carer for that moment’s reassurance which is so lovely to see.
 
For the regular attendees of story time, the feedback has been brilliant throughout the pandemic for just giving families a constant break to look forward to, this also was said by the nurses and carers on sits wearing full PPE that it gave them something fresh to look forward to and it has also given the children some faces to see without masks which is a still so hard for so many children. These sessions are usually very interactive ensuring each child is ‘heard’ in whatever way they communicate whether that is spoken, sign, eye point, vocalisation, gesture or their own method of communication, a really privileged time for us Playmakers to have that window to see the children so regularly.