Cancer Patients Tell Tales of Courage with Beads
Friday May 22, 2009
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More Than a Token
Then Baruch had an epiphany while working as a camp nurse at Paul Newman’s The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for children fighting cancer and serious blood conditions. She saw how much the kids loved bead-crafting activities and began to research why people feel so tied to beads. She discovered humans have used beads for more than 100,000 years as symbols of accomplishment and honor.
She also came across studies about coping in children with serious illnesses and found that children were often struggling at the end of treatment and seeking tangible signs of completion.
“Children with cancer say they have been through so much and have nothing to show for it,” Baruch says. “Stickers are disposable, but beads are more durable and become a long-lasting symbol of a patient’s treatment journey.”
Baruch founded the nurse-driven Beads of Courage Program so that children earn specific colored beads for every treatment procedure or milestone they achieve. Another goal is to give nurses and other caregivers a tool to address the psychosocial needs of their pediatric patients with cancer and other serious conditions.
“This program increases children’s engagement in coping strategies and helps alleviate their experience of suffering because [the program] provides a language in which they can communicate about what is going on with them,” says Baruch, who is now executive director of the nonprofit Beads of Courage, Inc.
Beads of Courage has grown greatly in the five years since its inception. More than 50 children’s hospitals are using the program.
Arizona Museum for Youth in Mesa, Ariz., will also feature Beads of Courage as an exhibit from April 10 to Aug. 9.
To learn more about the Beads of Courage program, visit www.beadsofcourage.net.
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Now through the Beads of Courage program, these children can display tangible badges of their strength and bravery.
The program, founded by Jean M. Baruch, RN, BSN, provides each child with a length of string and beads that spell out his or her first name. Then the children’s nurses and other healthcare providers award the children beads of different colors that represent a different procedure or treatment milestone. The children add the beads to their collection throughout their treatment.
For example, a white bead represents one chemotherapy treatment; a yellow bead, an inpatient admission; and a glow-in-the-dark bead, radiation treatment.
When children complete their course of treatment, they receive a specially made, one-of-a-kind purple heart bead. Children can also continue to collect beads after treatment during follow-up appointments.
The list of treatments and their corresponding beads and colors is extensive, as is the amount of treatments these children must go through. They collect, on average, more than 500 beads each, according to Baruch, who is also executive director of Beads of Courage, Inc., a nonprofit company.
“Beads showcase their journey with cancer and enable children and adolescents to talk about what they have gone through,” adds Jayne Roses-Landau, RN, pediatric research nurse coordinator and ambassador of the Beads of Courage program at City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, Calif.
Infants and toddlers can also participate in the program through their parents, but they are not given beads directly, due to the potential choking hazard. However, as infants and toddlers grow older, the beads their parents collected for them can serve as a road map of their journey with serious illness.
“We’ve had families thank us for acknowledging what their children are going through,” says Roses-Landau. She adds that parents have thanked her for giving them a vessel that helps them and their children discuss the disease and its treatment with extended family and friends.
“For parents, the beads are something for them to grasp, and it helps them cope even when the children don’t survive,” says Mary K. Sawin, RN, BSN, OCN, CPON, a staff nurse who brought the program to Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Del.
Beads of Courage, Inc. supplies on-site training for nurses and other professionals who will be giving out beads. The training includes how to integrate the program into daily practice. The program, which supplies the specially crafted multicolored beads, costs the nurse’s facility about $20 for each child.
Catherine Spader, RN, is a contributing writer for Nursing Spectrum and NurseWeek.
To comment, e-mail editorCA@nurseweek.com.
