Georgie shadows Lucy, Family Support Youth Worker

written by Georgie Abbott

“Ready, Steady, Go, Hello” is a national programme our CHSF Family Support Worker, Lucy McMahon, has been telling me we are working towards implementing to help our young heart warriors as they navigate their cardiac care pathways. And perhaps this is something we can all learn from in terms of how we start a New Year…

How have you started January? Have you gone full throttle into meetings? Or have you taken some reflection time to gather your feelings and learnings from last year? Either way I hope you are all being kind to yourselves and taking the time you need to look after your own wellbeing.

New in post, Lucy McMahon is CHSF’s first Family Support Youth Worker. As well as working in our Family Support team, Lucy is working with our older chldren and young people as they go through transition in their care to adult services.

I was at this point both sceptical and hopeful, that Lucy would be able to engage and help this little girl. Lucy explained in her calm supportive manner that the form was to help us find out about her so we could support her while she is in hospital.

The first question was “What is your name?”, which drew a complete blank with the young girl even though she seemed excited by the coloured pens. It was at this point when her mum told us she speaks Spanish and that they have only been living in the UK for a year. This clearly explained a lot and I was so impressed with Lucy’s immediate resourcefulness in response to this new information.

She typed into her phone to find the Spanish words for family members to help with answers to the next question. She showed the young girl pictures of different family members and recited the Spanish words, ‘Papa’, ‘Mama’, ‘Hermano’ and ‘Hermana’. It was wonderful to see a smile spread across the girls face in response to Lucy’s efforts to connect with her.

I felt very moved in this moment witnessing the happy contrast in the girls expression while Lucy was breaking down these language barriers. I could tell her mum was also enjoying the conversation as they started to laugh together about her brothers.

I couldn’t imagine what it must feel like for this young girl to be in a strange place, a hospital in a new country where she is still learning the language while recovering from major heart surgery. She was hooked up to a machine via lots of wires and Lucy helped her navigate these while she sat on the bed to have a go with the colouring pens.

It was clear that having something to focus on with Lucy was lifting the girls spirits and I felt privileged to watch Lucy at work, connecting with one of our young patients, particularly when the nurses had previously struggled to do this.

Lucy subsequently found out that the girl loved Frozen and gave her some colouring pictures of her favourite characters for her to enjoy. I have no doubt that Lucy’s interaction with her during this time made a huge difference to her day. Her mum also seemed more as ease as we left her bedside to visit a few of the other patients on the ward.

Lucy is passionate about developing our youth service for young patients and is dreaming big for the future. She told me that her absolute dream is to develop an App so that each cardiac patient would have their own login so they can ask direct questions to the Clinical Cardiac Nurse Specialists, receive alerts about their medicines and tell the nursing staff how they are feeling in themselves. This could also include a forum for them to connect with other children experiencing similar hospital journeys.

If you or your business would like to work in partnership with CHSF to help us make Lucy’s dream a reality we would love to hear from you at georgie.abbott@chsf.org.uk

Georgie Abbott
Corporate Partnerships Manager
georgie.abbott@chsf.org.uk

Recruiting Corporate Partners across Yorkshire, The Humber, North East Lincolnshire and North Derbyshire who want to help improve the lives of children born with congenital heart defects.