Benefits for Professionals

CLIMB® is an acronym for Children’s Lives Include Moments of Bravery. But it’s really more than that. It’s an enjoyable, sharing, interactive session for children of parents with cancer to come together to deal with their feelings. Children are powerfully shaped by their external environment, which social scientists refer to as the Power of Context. Thus, in this context of the CLIMB® group activities, wherein small groups of children engage in art therapy and play therapy as tools to enable them to express their feelings, an almost magical transformation takes place. Children learn basic information about cancer, but more important, that they are not alone: other kids are dealing with the same emotional upheaval. And collectively, under the studied guidance of caring professional therapists, the children develop coping skills. Moreover, the interaction of the children in this context can not be underestimated. The sharing and bonding of the children results in such expressions as, “I’d rather go to the support group than the soccer practice,” or as an older child said, “Why wouldn’t you want me to go to the support group?”