Pediatric Oncology Support Team Inc

The mission of POST is to help local children and their families courageously fight cancer by giving them compassionate emotional and financial Support. POST's multidisciplinary team of dedicated, caring professionals provide free, high-quality, strength-based psychosocial services to children, teens and young adults in six Florida counties. POST's services are family- centered because cancer doesn't happen to individuals, it happens to families. Every year, POST helps between 150-200 local families through counseling, play therapy, medical play, educational advocacy, sibling Support, Support groups, social activities, end-of-life care and bereavement. POST's professional staff provides compassionate care to families during the darkest time of their lives. Supportive counseling is the cornerstone of these services, meeting clients wherever they are - in the hospital, clinic, heroes' headquarters (POST young hero cancer resource center), school, home, or hospice. In addition, we partner with local hospitals and universities to provide the best possible evidence-based care. Services are available 24 hours a day on an as-needed basis. POST's mission is accomplished through services which fall into these major areas: (1)giving hope family Support program - to help these brave families successfully navigate their cancer experience. POST provides full range of free psychosocial services to children with cancer including supportive counseling, individual and family therapy, medical play, Support groups, case management, and educational advocacy. (2)giving help financial Support program - not only must families cope with the overwhelming fear that they could lose their child, they also face major financial challenges of medical costs and lost income from caring for an ill child. Financial stress is one of the greatest challenges for a family to cope with. Through the "giving help" program, POST provides financial assistance to families who need help paying for housing, transportation, medication, food and other daily living needs through funds made available from donations. Our case manager also helps families complete a budget, find, apply for, and secure assistance from local / national resources. This program includes our preventing homelessness & food insecurity for children battling cancer initiative. We have a food pantry for our clients. (3)our giving healing program provides social outings, Support groups, expressive art projects, and coaching / mentoring, all of which are crucially important in helping families cope with the trauma of cancer. For example, POST offers parent's nite out, cancer survivor day, and annual holiday party. Through this we create hope, essential to survival and important in sustaining a fighting spirit. We create opportunities for children with cancer and their families to meet other young cancer warriors to establish supportive relationships and create a sense of community to reduce isolation, increase healthy coping, improve treatment compliance, and decrease distress. (4)the POST giving comfort palliative care program is provided for clients when the goal of treatment is not cure, but comfort and quality of life, not quantity of life. POST care team members are bedside during child's final hours. POST also helps families plan and pay for funeral and memorial expenses. This program includes the butterfly fund which has component of "memory making" with families who have child dying of cancer. In cooperation with trustbridge (hospice) and Florida atlantic school of medicine, POST trains physician fellows in Pediatric palliative care to improve the overall care of dying children in this community. (5)save my seat - this program is an educational initiative to teach classroom peers about their classmate's cancer and related issues with the goal of creating a safe, accepting environment within the school for brave young patients battling cancer. This program serves to improve the academic success of our patients by creating empathy among peers, educating the educators in the specific needs of children with cancer, and advocating on their behalf. We use a variety of child-friendly tools including puppets, and stuffed animal surrogates in the classroom, and school-medical data sheet signed by the Pediatric oncologist to create either a section 504 or individualized education plan (iep) for each child. (6)heroes' headquarters - our office is 50' from the busiest Pediatric Oncology practice in palm beach county. Heroes' headquarter's is specifically designed to promote a culture of healing - social, emotional, and academic wellness. Space that is physically and emotionally safe for children and their families conducive to building connections. It's a place where families interact and create connection; congregate before and after doctor appointments (get food from the food pantry, or just get a hug). We host events such as back to school night or painting and pizza and cookies and craft parties family potluck dinners, guest speakers, and teen Support groups. In our play therapy center, kids can work through the trauma of cancer with a therapist using medical toys, such as medical puppets and miniature hospital room complete with miniature hospital bed and mri/ct machine. (7) less pain, more gain is our non-pharmacological pain management program that utilizes cutting-edge virtual reality (vr) headsets and simulated child friendly underwater world to minimize pain during medical procedures. The vr systems have reduced patient procedures-related distress by more than 25%.