Patient and Family Support

Valley Children’s multidisciplinary team focuses on family-centered care, addressing not only the illness, but the whole child and family as well.

Child Life
Focusing on the developmental needs of children, child life specialists provide education, play and emotional support for patients and their families. Key services through child life specialists are illness and hospital education, surgery preparation, therapeutic and recreational play activities, coordinate special events and grief and bereavement support.

Nurse Navigators
Nurse navigators are an important link between the families, primary care providers and subspecialists. They help coordinate care for patients and families from time of diagnosis to diagnostic testing, treatment and follow-up care. They respond to clinical questions in a timely manner, explain the reason behind a treatment, and coordinate care across the healthcare continuum. This can help reduce a patient’s anxiety and enhancing his or her ability to follow through with appointments and prescribed treatment.

Nutrition Services
Our registered dieticians provide medical nutrition therapy for patients. Our clinical dieticians work closely with our oncologists in outpatient and inpatient settings to develop and implement nutrition plans of care.

Palliative Care
Through palliative care, children with life-limiting or life-threatening medical conditions receive active treatments at home. Palliative care is treatment of the pain, symptoms and stress of the illness to improve a child’s and family’s quality of life.  Care is provided by specially trained physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, child life specialists and therapists. We also help families enroll in the state-funded Concurrent Care Program for added home support services as necessary.

Rehabilitation Services
Valley Children’s provides the highest quality inpatient and outpatient pediatric rehabilitation care tailored to meet the individual physical, development, social, psychosocial and educational needs of each child and family. We provide physical therapy, occupational therapy, audiology and speech therapy for inpatient cases and outpatient visits.

Social Services
Our social workers help children and families cope with every part of the cancer journey – through emotional, social or financial issues. Every child is assigned one social worker throughout his or her entire scope of care. They help families understand their child’s diagnosis and treatment plan, help overcome any barriers to care such as transportation or work-related issues, they helps kids stay focused on their goals or assist them transition back to school after his or her care is complete.