How to Create a Family-Friendly Healthcare Space
Medical appointments can be scary for kids, but they don’t have to be. Making sure that children feel validated, appreciated, and listened to are key factors when it comes to creating a family-friendly healthcare space.
When it comes to medical appointments and visits to the hospital, creating positive initial experiences is the key here to ensuring that kids feel comfortable coming back. Kidzsmart’s community outreach programs help kids to feel safe and relaxed in healthcare spaces, making the experience a lot easier for the entire family. Here are some tips to make sure families feel comfortable in healthcare settings.
Train staff to deal with families of all types
Families come in all different shapes and sizes – you can have blended families, families with same-sex parents, and single parent families too. Ensuring your staff are aware of the patient’s family structure when they visit is both reassuring, and makes the family feel respected. When incorporating a community outreach program into your medical office, it’s important to show diversity in your characters too. Seeing families who look just like them means a lot to kids!
Promote the fact that you’re a family-friendly practice
Your online presence is important. Clearly stating on your website that your practice is family-friendly and outlining the resources you have available for children will put parents’ minds at ease and will help kids feel less anxious about appointments. The art and the science of capturing the attention of kids, firing up their imagination and winning the support of their parents requires a delicate balance and a Kidzsmart strategy.
We use trending educational themes to carefully craft our family-friendly content, with emphasis on family experiences to show your patients that you care. But you can’t just say your medical practice is family-friendly, you have to show it too.
Provide high-quality fun content for kids
Parents these days want content that will last, not something that their kids will get tired of in a couple of minutes. Creating an edutainment-based community outreach program that kids can take home will remind them of the positive experience they had and help them feel less anxious about doctors’ visits in the future. Some of our most popular outreach programs are made up of activity books for kids – these are fully customizable and come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and lengths. Some of our clients choose to have three or four issues per year, with the content focusing on different areas each time. Themes that work well for a medical practice include programs focusing on physical health, nutritional health, mental health and more. These topics are covered in a child-friendly way that is both entertaining and educational, and you can even go the extra mile by incorporating a digital element to your community outreach program too.
Digital, digital, digital!
Everything comes in a digital format nowadays, and your outreach program can too! This can supplement your printed program or stand alone - our kids' programs move with the times and the digital revolution hasn't left us behind! With a wide range of kid-sensitive and family-friendly solutions, we can bring your engagement goals online and into the hands of your youngest patients.
Digital engagement is emerging as a first-line strategy for communication and relationship building with patients. Apps are more popular than ever now, and it’s easy an easy way of getting your content to kids. You can incorporate health-based content into your digital program, like sports games, activities where you can count and name healthy foods, and meditation and breath work guides too. There are endless possibilities!
Validating negative feelings
When kids are anxious, it’s normal for parents to say things like “It will be fine, there’s nothing to be afraid of!” But in doing that, they may be shutting the child down. Some kids may not even ask questions, they are just generally afraid and don’t know how voice their concerns, but a family outreach program can encourage kids to find their voice and ask questions about certain topics, and parents can give answers in a child-friendly way. Nerves before a doctor’s appointment are normal for a lot of people, and by highlighting this in your family outreach program you can take away a lot of the fear for children and help teach parents how to prepare their kids.
It’s appointment day… How can healthcare spaces relieve some stress and anxiety for kids?
The reassurance starts before the appointment begins
You can help parents to prepare their kids for appointments by including topical games and activities as part of an app. Games can answer specific questions in child-friendly language or teach them about the different ways they can stay healthy. Activities can promote exercise, teach kids about nutrition and minding their mental health – all in a way that their age group can understand. You can remind parents booking appointments over the phone about your app and mention it in any digital reminders you send to them before the appointment.
Provide entertainment on the day.
A lot of doctor’s offices have toys available for kids to play with, but if there are multiple kids there at the same time, some of them can be left with nothing to do. And when there’s nothing to distract them, it only makes them focus on their nerves more. Having a program that can be handed out to each child means that each child feels appreciated, whether it’s a printed program like an activity book that’s handed out during the visit, or an app downloaded before the appointment instead. There are lots of different options for your family outreach program needs!
Staff that understand
Kids will remember the games and activities they got to play with at their appointment, but they’ll remember your staff members too. Making sure that all staff – nurses, doctors, etc. speak to kids in a child-friendly way. A warm and friendly demeanor will always be appreciated – kindness goes a long way and parents will remember these little things too!
Validate feelings of anxiety and discomfort
It’s natural for kids to feel worried about a doctor’s appointment, but by using reaffirming anguage to validate their feelings, you can make it a whole lot easier. Answer their questions in a child-friendly manner and explain what’s happening along the way.
Offer a reward at the end of the appointment
Simple rewards like stickers or coloring sheets can easily be integrated into your family outreach program. These will help kids to see doctor’s visits as something with a positive outcome, as opposed to being something they’re scared of. By doing this, repeat visits are much easier for children and parents alike.
How can Kidzsmart help?
At Kidzsmart we believe in the importance of preventative mental healthcare for kids and families. We start with the why; our creative strategy begins with this idea, and is intent on helping you gain clarity on your outreach program’s messaging by putting this stake in the ground. From here we help our clients build fun and informative kid-friendly content through these touch points:
Family brand strategy
Research & brand auditing
Family messaging
Curriculum building
Graphic design & illustration
Video production, explainers & animation
Copywriting & social media content creation
Web design & development
Learning & edutainment material
And much more! We can help you effectively communicate with kids and families and create content that evolves over time and really makes a difference.
About Kidzsmart Communications
At Kidzsmart we create edutainment content that inspires the leaders of tomorrow, today. We prioritize preventative health and wellness for kids and families, all while maintaining our values of practicing positive physical and mental health, promoting academic excellence, celebrating diversity and inclusion, and most importantly…fun!
We believe your content should be more than just another coloring book. Kidzsmart is your spokesperson to modern families, and we’re dedicated to contributing to the greater wellbeing of kids.
Want to learn more about why we need more creating a family-friendly healthcare space?
It’s time to get Kidzsmart!
