2010 Winner
In 2010 the fifth Social Paediatrics Prize was awarded by the scientific committee to
Dr. Marie-Odile Serinet-Orbach, a hospital practitioner working at the Bullion paediatrics and rehabilitation hospital in the municipality of Longchêne (78), for her project entitled:
"Helium Wednesdays: a solution to the impact that a hospitalised child suffering from chronic illness can have on intra-family relationships (parents and siblings). The results of work carried out jointly by a follow-up paediatric and rehabilitation hospital and a local healthcare network in France’s Yvelines département".
A Doctor of Medicine with diploma from Lille II University (1997), Dr. Marie Odile Serinet-Orbach has worked at Bullion paediatric and rehabilitation hospital since April 2006 (as a hospital practitioner since 2008). She obtained a university degree in paediatric oncology in 1996 and has been a member of the Ile-de-France paediatric haematology-oncology network (RIFHOP) since 2008.
A follow-up care and rehabilitation establishment, the Bullion paediatric and rehabilitation hospital in South Yvelines cares for children and young people up to the age of 17, suffering from chronic illness or needing rehabilitation. It works in cooperation with Le Pallium, the palliative healthcare network for the South Yvelines area, to give the best possible support to children reaching the end of their lives.
The "Helium Wednesdays” scheme offers relaxation and art therapy workshops, a counselling support group and a discussion group for young patients and their families. The scheme is organised in agreement with local healthcare providers.
The idea therefore arose of a closer partnership between the two structures, in order to provide better support for children suffering from chronic illnesses and their families, especially in the case of prolonged hospitalisation. Among the children hospitalised at Bullion, the project initiators noted “a population for which maintenance of family links could be severely challenged by several factors: hospitalisation that may be far from the family home (provinces, West Indies, other countries), the language or cultural barrier in certain cases, and lastly the geographic isolation specific to the Bullion establishment”.
The main aim of the project is therefore to strengthen family links within this particularly vulnerable population, by supporting parents and siblings (whose difficulties are often overlooked due to the seriousness of the chronic illness), mainly within the framework of group action. The project’s secondary aim is to ensure that teams (carers, social and educational participants), together with local participants at home, are aware of the signs of weakening of family links.
In practical terms, this means organising discussion and support groups for parents, based on verbal and corporal expression; a “don’t be frightened of your feelings” workshop designed for siblings (most often overlooked in follow-up …); intercultural, individual or collective mediation action. The steering committee includes members of the project team (a paediatrician, a psychologist, a network coordination nurse and a member of hospital nursing management staff), the representative of each partner structure and the parent of a child patient (now cured). In the long term, the aim is also to transmit to the supervisory authorities (notably the Regional Health Agency), the needs identified by the programme and the responses developed.
