Doctor for a Day: Community Teddy Bear Clinic

Makenzie Ferguson, RN, BSN, CPEN
Carly Hume, MS, CCLS

The purpose of the Teddy Bear Clinic is to use children’s play to educate school aged children on health and safety topics. The clinic takes place at a school where each child receives a teddy bear when they check in. Next, they have one hour to visit various stations with their bear to practice common hospital activities such as vital signs and first aid. The goal is to increase familiarity of the environment and medical tools during hospital or clinic visits. This gives children a sense of mastery and control in an environment they may be unfamiliar with. Other stations are dedicated to safety. Here they learn about disaster preparedness, water and other summer safety topics. Educational resources are given to the students to take home and share with parents.

This program was a partnership between trauma services and the child life department. Child life specialists can develop and deliver developmentally appropriate education on sensitive topics related to trauma injury prevention. Each station was run by nurses, EMT’s or child life specialists. Funding for the bears was secured through a private donor with the help of the hospital foundation. If funding isn’t available, the students can alternatively bring their own stuffed animal from home. Some play medical supplies were purchased by the departments and various expired medical equipment was borrowed from the hospital.

240 students ages 4-11 years old went through the clinic. School leadership described the program as "a joyful, informative, and memorable learning experience.” Developmentally appropriate pre and post surveys are currently being developed to further measure outcomes for future programming.

The utilization of a Teddy Bear Clinic is an effective and engaging method to deliver injury prevention and various health topics to children. The stations can be easily adapted to various populations as well as many different safety education topics. Community partners such as fire departments or police departments can also be included to enrich the learning experience. Limitations included time management to accommodate various ages and engagement at each station as well as difficulty measuring outcomes in very young children.

• Participants will understand the benefits of using a Teddy Bear Clinic to engage young children in safety education
• Participants will be able to verbalize the resources needed to replicate this program to meet the needs of their community and/or injury prevention program
• Participants will be able to describe stakeholders involved in the development of a Teddy Bear Clinic