Sort out your committee!

Generally, these are the kinds of positions you’ll need to fill, though
you may be limited by committee size. Job sharing can work well.
a) Coordination
 Keep everything running!!!
 Work out which workshops to do and plan them
 National contact
b) Teddy-Doctors
 Advertising among students and nurses
 Taking part in consultations at the TBH
 Name badges / t-shirts for Teddy Bear Doctors
c) Press / Advertisement
 Posters, presentations to sell it to students and
schools
 Press release (together with the adapted TBH
proposal)
 Contact to newsletters, radio stations, TV
 Pictures (after release forms have been signed by
children’s parents)
d) Fundraising / Sponsoring
 Project description / proposal (see the generic
proposal file)
 Costing / budget
 Ascertaining public and private sponsorship
 Merchandising (pens, balloons…)
TEDDY BEAR e) Permissions / Insurance
 Keeping the university up-to-date

HOSPITAL
 Hospital/school insurance
 Personal liability insurance for teddy doctors
(MDU/MPS)

HANDBOOK
 Child protection training
f) Schools
How to plan your very own TBH – step by step  Identifying schools in the area
 Getting in contact with schools
  Arrangement / preparations with headteacher
 Prepping class teachers, making sure they know
what’s going to happen
 Working out where in the school the TBH can take
place
 Organise tables and chairs in the school
 Check out toilet facilities and safety issues
 Design banners for the hospital
g) Props
 List things needed or required (plasters, bandages
etc.)
 Enquire at hospitals (nursing staff, pharmacy) or go
out and buy (liaise with sponsorship people to get free
samples)
 Brush and paint / paper / pen / balloons / decoration
 Drinks / sweets
h) Training
 Co-ordinate training weekend to cover child protection
and workshop structure
 Ensure the Teddy Bear doctors are ready
 Chase up CRB checks, indemnity
Writing about the TBH
There’s probably two kinds of document you’ll need…
a) Cover letter: Maximum one page:
Give a short explanation of the project and his background
without mentioning too many details. Contact details are
essential and it’s important to mention established support
(e.g. the PCT)
You can then add a specific inquiry to financial or material
support and voila! A sponsor-request letter.
b) Proposal: About 3-4 pages:
The proposal is a detailed description of a project. Include
information about the organisations, time and budget plans.
The proposal should be available if enquiries are made by
sponsors, supporters or the press. There is a generic
proposal in the TBH starter kit which you can change or
adapt to your needs.
Website
A great opportunity to advertise the TBH and to post photos
(make sure you have release forms if there are children in
them). Sponsors can be named on the website to increase
the chance of getting support. If a website of your own is
unfeasible for whatever reason, try contacting your local
Medsin branch for a bit of space on theirs – you’ll probably
get more relevant interest this way too.
Patrons
Try to get the dean of your faculty or a paediatric consultant
interested in the project and endorse it with their approval. If
possible, get them to write a letter, in which s/he explains
support of the project. This is a great resource in persuading
other people that the TBH is a great idea!
In addition they can help you with PR opportunities (as they
probably have a bit more experience than you). Getting
doctors onside is also really useful for the training aspects of
the TBH.
Organisation
In general there are three possibilities:
1) School model – the TBH is held in the gym or similar
large room and the doctors go to the children. This is
particularly useful for pilot projects and small scale TBH
projects where your numbers are limited.
 2) Tent model – the TBH is held in a public place in a town
(in Europe the TBHs tend to be held in large tents). More
children can come in theory, but you may have issues
with permission from the council, a need for increased
vigilance in terms of child protection and crowd control!!
It’s also more likely to get substantial press attention.
3) Hospital model – the TBH is held in your teaching
hospital. This is useful in terms of access to resources
(like lightboxes or similar) but has the downside of
provoking a bit more anxiety than the safe atmosphere of
the school. It’s a good idea when the PCT already has a
programme involving taking school children into hospitals
to see what they’re like – there’s no point in reinventing
the wheel so if such a project exists then linking into it is
not a bad idea.
If you’re planning it in town, try to find:
• A quiet place without streets and traffic
• Shade in the summer (children get dehydrated very quickly)
• Soft ground (for example, grass)
• Toilet facilities!
• Electricity (but not essential)
Fundraising:
The basis for all the enquiries is a cover letter or proposal, which
outlines the support proposed (amounts of money, material assets;
how much and what exactly you want and what you will use it for)
Try the following authorities:
• Dean or directly to the university (student unions often
have special funding available)
• PCT – they may have a budget for this. Also try to contact
some UKPHA (Public Health Authority) people
• Private sponsors
- Pharmacies
- Toy shops
- Photocopying shops
- Producers of sweets/stickers
- Libraries
External support
We used stickers from the Sticker Factory
(www.stickerfactory.co.uk) which they kindly sent as free samples.
Most of their stickers are aimed at teachers so sponsorship from
them is a possibility.
It may be worth contacting the local ambulance service to see if
they’ll bring an ambulance down – apparently this is pretty popular
with the kids but the chances of this happening depend on where
you are setting the project up!
As ever, Medsin is around to help. For any queries or questions,
contact the Teddy Bear Hospital Co-ordinator at tbh@medsin.org.
Contacting schools
Address lists for local schools are often found in the town hall or
town council website. You could also contact private nurseries &
play groups.
To get them interested, send the proposal, an outline of how the
TBH will work practically and provide a personal contact (by phone
or by visiting them). This needn’t be the president – you can have
someone (or more than one person) whose role is to be a school
liaison.
After confirmation from the organisation of the number of children
and when they would like to come, you should stay in regular
contact and remind them of the TBH.
Discuss with the class teachers how the TBH will work and what the
children will do. Before coming to the TBH, the children should be
given time to think in advance about what their teddy’s complaint is,
and could perhaps discuss this in class. It can be difficult to think
something up at the TBH itself.
Timetable:
You should plan approx 10mins consultation time for each child and
his teddy. Depending from the size of the TBH and the number of
the teddy docs you can plan the rest of the TBH to ensure each
child will get some consultation time.
Teddy Bear Doctors and Training
In principle you can also ask, apart from medical students, PGCE
students or pharmacy students, as well as nurses. The number of
people who are helping depends on the size of your hospital.
Ideally, you need about 10-15 teddy docs and 2-3 people from the
committee in the TBH every shift.
Everyone should bring a stethoscope and a smile!!
TBH training must be undertaken before working at the TBH.
A possible structure for TBH training:
• Consultations with children (perhaps from a paediatrician)
How to take a history, explaining to the children everything
you are doing with his teddy, especially reminding them of
the sensory impressions such as auscultation: “that feels
cold”
• Explanation of the how the TBH works (committee)
• Psychological aspects of illness; how the child perceives the
hospital and medical process (play specialist/child &
adolescent psychiatrist)
• Ethics – confidentiality, consent, competence, duty of care
(ethicist/consultant paediatrician)
• What to do if things start to go wrong! (debrief time, child
protection issues)
Legal Cover
• Teddy Bear Docs MUST have MDU/MPS cover & an
enhanced CRB disclosure.
Press relations
The official press report should be a single A4 page and should
describe the project, the idea, the patrons and your contact details.
Publication of the press report:
- you can either contact all newspapers, radio & TV stations
(try the phone book, yellow pages or the internet)
- or contact the central PR- office at the university – that will
save you a lot of work and it might get more attention!
- further on you should contact the local newspapers by
telephone, they often have a responsible journalist for
university activities or local events.
- timetable: absolutely necessary!!!
- remind the people who are responsible for the TBH
1 month before (press report)
1 week before
1 day before!
- during the TBH there should be one or two organizers who
are responsible to answer questions, give interviews…
The Medsin Branch Resource pack contains an excellent guide
entitled “How to Write a Press Release”, written by StudentBMJ
editor Deborah Cohen. It is well worth downloading this and
passing it on to your publicity co-ordinators. A copy can be
obtained from www.medsin.org, through your local Medsin
 branch or by contacting the National Secretary
(secretary@medsin.org).
You should keep in mind, that the press, especially the cameras
can be very frightening for the kids and it can be a hindrance for
you to give them your full attention. Therefore try to deal with
press issues separately! For the best press attention you DO
want photos/tv footage to be taken, but ensure that you have
gained parental consent for this! If the school sends out
permission forms for participation in the TBH then this might be
a good time to get the consent in – maybe delegate this task to
the school liaisons.
How the TBH works
The TBH works in two phases. After an initial introduction and
warm up for the children (playing Simon Says or similar), the
children split into:
Workshop time:
The children are divided into groups which cycle through
different health promoting workshops. At one station the children
have their Teddy Bear consultation. In general, three workshops
of 20mins each with 20mins at the consultation maintains the
attention span of the average 3-7 year old without letting them
get bored.
Workshops can be completely driven by the health needs of the
area; they may include healthy eating, learning about senses,
how and when to get help in an emergency (for older children),
road safety, sharps safety, medicines safety or anything else
relevant to the age and situation at your TBH.
Consultation time:
This is divided into a waiting room and the consultations
themselves. In the waiting room, children can fill out a history
form, colour some pictures, learn about their heart (using the
stethoscopes with spare Teddy Bear Doctors) or anything else
you can think of! They must be supervised by Teddy Bear
Doctors, receptionists or teachers. Half the group does this while
the other half are in consultation.
- In the consultation, things are driven by the child and occur
as a normal hospital consultation would.
- First the child explains the history of the illness or injury their
teddy bear has to a teddy doctor.
- The teddy doctor examines the teddy (inspection, palpation,
auscultation etc.) and plans investigations (e.g. x-ray). Most
teddy bears present with broken arms and legs but it helps to
be prepared for anything!
- After this the teddy gets medical treatment; ALWAYS non-
invasive treatments with tapes and bandages and no
medication (this may present confusion between medicines
and sweets)/
- Finally the teddy doctor writes a prescription for love and
hugs.
- You may wish to give the child a certificate at this point to
show that they have attended the Teddy Bear Hospital.
13. Follow-up
- Debrief the team with a child and adolescent psychiatrist or
similar interested professional
- Remember to thank your supporters and sponsors, e.g. by
sending them copies of press articles, pictures or letters.
- Write an article for the university-magazine
- Write a final report
- Consider contact parents/the school to ask for specific
feedback – it will help your relationship with them which in
turn will help your relationship with other schools and
parents!
- Maintain contact with schools who are pleased with the TBH
– you can always go back next year and see the new year
group!