Merrimack Valley Hospice just brought two new faces on board to help children who are grieving or dying.
They are a pair of puppets, a boy and a girl.
Lou LaBella, coordinator of bereavement and volunteer services, said children sometimes open up to a puppet in a way that they won't with an adult.
"After a while, I don't think even we realize we're doing it," LaBella said. "The puppet is doing it, not us. And so that might help children to feel more comfortable."
The puppets were one of several tools purchased through a grant from the Rogers Family Foundation to help the organization increase its programming for children. The grant also pays for art supplies for the Canvases of Hope support group in Andover for bereaved children ages 8 to 11, and for outreach services to local schools when a teacher or classmate dies.
Though hospice services are typically for adults who are in the last months of their lives, children sometimes receive hospice services, too.
Merrimack Valley Hospice cared for eight terminally ill children last year, said Beth Dimitruk, the hospice's external relations manager and grant writer. The agency also worked with hundreds of children who were grieving the deaths of a mother, father, sibling or classmate.
The puppets used with the kids have soft flaps that open over their abdomens and on the backs of their heads to show internal organs and brains. It would be frightening, except the organs look as if they were made out of colorful socks. The puppets also have little holes where a doctor can insert a real syringe or medical tubing to explain a breathing tube in the throat or a feeding tube in the chest.
These features can be used to prepare sick children for medical procedures, Dimitruk said.
"Then it's not so scary at the end," she said.
The puppets can also be used to prepare a child for the arrival at home of a mother or father who is terminally ill.
"They may be coming home from the hospital with an IV or with a tracheotomy or with a feeding tube," Dimitruk said. "Well we could show the child what it's going to look like and maybe Lou and his staff would be able to say, 'It really doesn't hurt. It looks like it hurts but it doesn't hurt,' so the child doesn't feel so anxious."
LaBella said he looks forward to using the puppets as a counseling tool. Rather than ask a group of children how they feel about a death in the family, he can introduce the puppet and explain that the puppet's grandmother just died.
Then the children can ask the puppet questions and even console the puppet by talking about how they are feeling.
Ryan Loiselle, a medical social worker who helps run the Canvases of Hope program, said that's the kind of thing that can help a child open up in a group.
"It might be safer for the kid to have the puppet talk rather than talk themselves," he said.
Name the new puppets
Hospice of the Merrimack Valley needs a name for its new puppets, a boy and a girl. Local elementary school classrooms are welcome to submit name suggestions. The puppets may even stop by to say thanks. Contact Lou LaBella at 978-552-4522.
