News

Our Enriching Spaces programme continues to brighten the hospital environment and make communal spaces, treatment rooms and wards more inviting places to be.

Marina, our creative Head of Art, recently visited Great Ormond Street Hospital to spread smiles with her stunning wall and window artworks.

Marina said, “It’s lovely working with the children in the design process, feel the mounting excitement as I work and see the smiles of children, parents and staff with the finished artworks.” 

We were thrilled to hear about 10 year old friends, Pearl and Izzy, who, after reading about Spread a Smile in The Week Junior magazine, were inspired to fundraise for the charity.

Their school, Barnes Primary, runs a Citizenship Award to encourage pupils to look after themselves, their school and their community with a positive mindset. As part of the Award they needed to raise money for charity.

The girls decided to make and sell lavender bags and with the help of Pearl’s mum and Izzy’s grandma they sewed the bags together. They sold the bags door to door and also set up a stall.

Izzy and Pearl raised a fabulous £125. They said, “…we had so much fun and we learn to use a sewing machine. We hopefully think we made a difference in a lot of people’s lives. In the process of this we got to express our creativity which produced unique lavender bags. We are so happy we did this.”

The holidays are always a difficult time for critically ill children and never more so than during a pandemic when isolating in hospital or at home becomes a necessity. We have been there throughout the summer with a host of interactive virtual activity days to amuse and delight.  More than 200 children have attended activities including a meet and greet with Spiderman and Princess Elsa, Olympic art and anime workshops, a Mamma Mia musical theatre session, TikTok dancing with the Gregorian Sisters and, this week, a Back to School virtual challenge.

One mum messaged us to say, “Just a quick message to say thank you sooo much for yesterday. Zac loved meeting Spiderman. He is still talking about it now.”

We’ve had so much fun doing it and it’s been wonderful to spread so many smiles during the holidays. We are now working on plans for half term including Halloween and Christmas.

Our partner, Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice, hosted their family day, Noah’s Fest, earlier this month. We were delighted to attend to entertain the children under their care as well as their families.

Our fairies, magicians and artists supported the many family activities available on the day with singing, magic tricks and art activities. A member of the hospice team commented as a Spread a Smile fairy sang ‘Never Enough’ with two little girls, “The immediate audience had tears in their eyes. She really made the day special for several children and helped create a lovely atmosphere.”

It’s wonderful to receive such positive feedback and to see the children’s smiles. We are delighted to work with our partner hospitals and hospices to enhance their events and spread more smiles.

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Dame Maureen Lipman and Heidi Nathan appeared on Good Morning Britain on Friday 30 July to talk about their friendship, early morning walks throughout lockdown and the many savoury and sweet recipes that inspired their cookbook, This Book is Toast.

To purchase the cookbook please click HERE.  All author proceeds from sales will go to Spread a Smile.

Dame Maureen Lipman DBE is a theatre, film, radio and television actor, writer and comedian. She was made a Dame in the 2020 Queen’s Birthday Honours for services to charity, entertainment and the arts.  Heidi Nathan is Spread a Smile’s Trust and Foundation’s Manager.

We cannot describe how happy we were to host our first face-to-face event this year. The Teddy Bears’ Picnic was held on a wonderful summer’s day at Coram’s Fields on Wednesday 21st July.  With strict covid-19 safety measures and sunscreen in place, we created a fun-packed afternoon to spread smiles with lots of playful teddy bear-themed activities including teddy makeovers and clinics for poorly teddy bears plus, for the children, face painting, arts and crafts, magic shows and balloon modelling.

There was even a special appearance from our very own Buddy Bear who took part in some fun dances with the families.

Jacob (in the image with his mum) said “This was the first party he had ever been to and he absolutely loved the bubbles!” We want to thank all our fabulous partners for their support – Hartley’s, Morrisons Camden, KP Snacks & Pom Bears, Metcalfe Snacks, Marine Ices and Bregal Milestone who gifted a super array of food, drinks and treats for our children to enjoy, making the day even more special.

Spread a Smile is delighted to announce that we will be funding a Play Specialist role at Great Ormond Street Hospital.  Spread a Smile regularly works with GOSH, offering our range of services to entertain and enhance the wellbeing of the children and young people under their care.  This new role underlines the excellent working relationship between the two organisations and the importance of play and entertainment throughout a child’s healthcare journey.

Debbie Tropp (pictured here and above, pre pandemic), from Spread a Smile, who is a qualified Play Specialist, has taken on the role and started last month. Debbie will provide specialised therapeutic play and support, predominantly for 0-5 year olds with complex conditions, many of whom have spent large parts of their early life in hospital. She will support young children to achieve important milestones and provide creative and stimulating play opportunities that are crucial to effective coping and healthy development. The patients Debbie is supporting will be referred from multidisciplinary professionals across different areas of the hospital. She will also spend time in GOSH’s Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), providing stimulation and sensory input with long term patients who have complex needs.

Lucy Jackson, Chief Executive of Spread a Smile, said, “We’re thrilled to be working with the incredible team at Great Ormond Street Hospital and are delighted to be funding a Play Specialist role at the hospital. This position will enhance the support available to young patients who need this dedicated, long term support.  Debbie has already spent time volunteering at GOSH and demonstrated how she is able, through play, to assist children and young people impacted by long term hospitalisation. This role will enable us to spread more smiles, joy and laughter to seriously ill children at GOSH.”

Laura Walsh, Head of Play Services at GOSH, said, “Spread a Smile are such amazing partners and are always so sensitive to the needs of patients here at GOSH. With the additional support from Debbie, the new Spread a Smile funded Play Specialist, we’ve been able to deliver play and therapeutic interventions for even more younger children in the Intensive Care Units. We are thrilled to be the first hospital to benefit from a Spread a Smile funded member of our team and it’s wonderful to see the difference these positive interactions are already making to our patients.”

Last weekend was National Ice Cream Day and boy did we need it. It was HOT!

To mark the day and spread thousands of smiles our wonderful partners, ice cream specialists Wall’s and Marine Ices delivered a variety of delicious ice creams to every child in our network of NHS hospitals in London and further afield.

We are delighted to have been nominated as Blink’s Charity Partner. Blink is the world’s first enterprise app designed exclusively for frontline workers and we can’t wait to start working with their enthusiastic team. Barry McDonagh, Blink’s COO commented,  “At Blink we are delighted to join the Spread a Smile family. We are very much looking forward to building on this partnership in the coming months and years to bring some cheer to the lives of children who are seriously ill in hospital. We cannot think of a more worthy charity to be associated with.”