Dance Therapy Videos, with Dréa’s Dream, to Help Families During COVID-19
St. Mary’s Hospital for Children believes that your home is the best place for your child, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. We want you to know that even though we can’t be together with your child, our patient, we want to help you navigate this crisis. Our medically complex children are vulnerable to infectious diseases and St. Mary’s is taking extraordinary measures to ensure that our children, their families, and our staff are safe.
Our heroic staff has dedicated themselves to providing St. Mary’s Kids with the highest level of protection during this challenging time. While we are separated and maintaining our social distance, we are not far from each other.
For our patients and their families that are home during this pandemic, we want to continue the progress they have made while they have been involved with the St. Mary’s Healthcare for Children’s Dance Therapy Program. This program is funded by The Andréa Rizzo Foundation in memory of Andréa Rizzo, a beautiful young woman who survived childhood cancer but was tragically killed by a drunk driver at the age of twenty-four. Her dream was to become a dance therapist and give children with cancer and special needs the gift of dance.
Dréa’s Dream, as the program is known, is a pediatric dance therapy and expressive movement program. It uses movement to further the emotional, social, cognitive, and physical integration of the individual. Programs are led by dance therapists who are dancers trained in both dance therapy and counseling or psychotherapy. They work in a wide variety of settings, such as psychiatric and medical hospitals, rehabilitation centers and nursing homes, community mental health agencies, schools and special education settings, wellness centers, and private practice.
St. Mary’s is fortunate to have received a grant from the Foundation that supports the expressive movement programs we have with dance professionals of the highest caliber. Andréa’s desire to help children came from her own experience of being hospitalized as a child. After her surgery, she lost all of her motor coordination and had speech and learning difficulties. The one thing that got her through her school years was dance. It was a form of therapy when the school became difficult. Her goal was to give back some of what she had been fortunate to receive.
St. Mary’s mission is to improve your child’s function and reduce the limitations they may have by continuing our dance therapy programs for our patients while they are sheltering at home during this COVID pandemic.
St. Mary’s Dance Therapist, Jennifer Whitley provides dance therapy for St. Mary’s Kids who are at home:
The Andréa Rizzo Foundation has posted several videos on YouTube so that you can watch them and continue the progress your child has made. Please click on this link to watch the videos and participate with your child.
