Shaindy Alexander

Shaindy Alexander is a Certified Child Life Specialist who works in Community Psychosocial Support with the Paediatric Advanced Care Team (PACT) at SickKids Hospital in Toronto.

Videos

 
What matters is what's important to each child and family
 
Supporting parents to be parents
 
How can we include and support kids when hard things are happening?
 
Being honest about hard things can help kids focus more on the good things
 
Talking with a child about their illness
 
Share information: Lead the way and then, take your child’s lead
 
When siblings of a sick child feel neglected
 
Finding new ways for siblings to connect
 
Pediatric Palliative Care is not just about life and death
 
Explaining what's happening makes things less scary for children
 
The five C’s
 
Legacy making doesn’t have to wait until end of life
 
Creating and recording fun times together
 
Kids deal with hard things differently than adults
 
Opening the door for questions that kids might have
 
Asking kids: “What are you wondering about?”
 
It's important to show emotion and to pair it with explanation
 
Trying to make space for the emotions of everyone in the family
 
Opening up the conversation when kids want to talk
 
Using art to get those big feelings out
 
Let some “air out of the balloon” of big feelings
 
Talking about how we can help with a child who is going to die
 
Kids grieve differently. They "jump in puddles" while adults "walk in rivers"
 
How I approach self-care
 
Self-care: I try not to hold onto the grief and sadness
 
Giving parents a space to talk about anticipatory grief
 
Collaborating with your child to make decisions
 
Conversations about advance care planning can give kids a sense of control
 
Kids sometimes worry that they’ll be forgotten
 
The three W's: what are you wondering, worried about and wishing for?
 
Palliative care is about partnering with families and talking about the whole picture
 
Checking in with siblings when a child has died
 
Feeling connected after a sibling has died
 
Kids can take things very literally
 
Creating a memory box
 
Why it helps to tell the truth
 
Taking a deep breath: Processing a diagnosis and new information