"Living Light Kids and Patches the Bear are dedicated to advocating for children, guiding them to find their voice. With the help of Patches and the eight expressive emotion face symbols, children can learn to name, understand and appropriately express the emotions he/she is feeling. All children including those in healthy or poor health, neglected - both emotionally and physically, sexually abused, traumatized by catastrophic events or bereavement, disabled and or learning disabled children, and those having to cope with deployment need to communicate and express their feelings. During childhood, children begin to develop communication skills, and it is imperative that the adults in a child's life encourage healthy communication. This enables children to learn, form relationships, build their sense of worth, develop coping skills and express their feelings, all of which empower them to endure challenges, through life's journey of happy times and painful moments."

"I have to tell you, too that I presented Patches at our last staff meeting on the 14th and he's been flying out of here ever
since. The child life specialists in this department LOVE HIM and are so excited to use him with kids!! They keep coming up to me saying "I have the perfect kid to use Patches with!" and then they proceed to tell me stories like... "I'm going to use him with two kids who were just burn victims" or "I'm going to give him to a sibling whose brother is going to die" or "I'm going to use him with a girl who just relapsed from cancer and won't talk to anyone."

More on that last story...one of the child life specialists who works in the outpatient Oncology clinic told me she took Patches to a 10 y.o. who just relapsed from her cancer and is not responding to treatment.
Because of that, she has pretty much shut down and doesn't interact with staff or even her mom very much anymore. So, the specialist brought her Patches and together they decided that instead of having to verbally tell staff or other people how she was feeling each day, she would
choose a feeling, put it in the pocket and present him to people when they asked questions about how she was doing that day.

And it's so funny b/c now the specialists keep asking me, "what happens when we run out of Patches? How are we going to get more?" So, definitely keep us in mind as you identify donors who may want to give money for bears for CHOP. He is going to be such a huge help around here. Oh yeah...and I've kept two boxes aside for the SCAN team (Suspected Child Abuse and Neglect but I'm sure you knew that already) and they're really excited about him, too.
Talk to you soon.
Stacy"

Stacy Redelheim, MS, CCLS
Special Events Coordinator
Child Life, Education and Creative Arts Therapy Department
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia

On October 8th, 2006 Patches the Bear made his successful Debut, and has since been the spirited talk of many organizations and individuals wanting to help bring Patches to communities and children everywhere!

To see the video from Patches Debut Event, please Select your connection speed from the list below:
Video Courtesy of Lou Angeli
(Windows Media Player Required)

We Appologize for the inconvenience, but the "Patches Debut Video" is in the process of moving to a new hosting site so more people can view it faster. Please check back soon for updates!

To view pictures from the event, please Click Here.
All Photos courtesy of Renate Siekmann, Photo Journalist.