Tonight's picture was taken in April of 2009. Mattie was in the child life playroom and performing a magic show for several of his psychosocial care providers. Mattie was learning magic that year from the "magic man," otherwise known as Bob Weiman, Mattie's head of the lower school. Bob learned these skills from his own dad and we were so honored that he was passing these unique skills down to Mattie. The trick Mattie was performing was the engagement trick. Bob actually did such a trick when he proposed to his wife. This is NOT an easy trick, but Mattie got it immediately! Mattie had very good fine motor skills.
Quote of the day: We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobile rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to humanity. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
Wendy Pelletier (Alberta Children's Hospital, Canada), Lori Wiener (NCI/NCI), and Barbara Jones (Assistant Dean of Health Studies, and Co-Director of The Institute of Grief at University of Texas, Austin). All three of these professionals are social workers.
We presented for 90 minutes. In which we shared stories about Mattie, discussed our Foundation, history of the Psychosocial Standards of Care project, the methodology to create the Standards, and the next steps to get the Standards implemented. It was a very full agenda but it was met with great interest, questions, and the desire to participate in a survey that our group designed. The survey will be sent out on the Association's listserv and will capture data from treatment sites all over the Country. Specifically the survey will assess how each of the 15 standards are currently being implemented, if at all, at treatment sites.
After our presentation, we were greeted with a standing ovation! Specifically the attendees and our researchers aimed the ovation at Peter and me..... parents who have lost a child to cancer and are using that loss to make a difference in the lives of other children with cancer.
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