Pip’s Kit (5–10 year olds)

Pip’s Kit supports children aged 5–10 years who have a parent or carer with incurable cancer.

What you will find inside the kit:

Pip
A toy for the child to cuddle and confide in.

Mini Pip
A smaller version to be given to the sick parent to promote a connection between parent and child.

Pip’s Letter
A letter to express sadness as well as acknowledging what the child may be going through.

Guides

• About Pip’s Kit: A short guide for the child.

• How to Look After Pip: Tells the child that Pip likes to be cuddled and shouted out, giving permission to feel strong emotions.

• Grown Ups Book: Information, support, and advice for adults. Suggestions on ways to support children and how to start talking to them as well as how children might feel and behave.

Coping Cards
Different questions or statements children might ask, think or feel with a list of relevant coping strategies and solutions to help them. They focus on:

• Feelings

• Fear & Worries

• Visiting Hospitals & Hospices

• School & Friends

Activity Idea Packs:

Encouraging Family Communication
[Share a Feeling; Create a Family Story; The Family Flag & Motto; A Letter to Mum or Dad; A Mobile of Someone Special]

These activities help children to communicate their feelings in creative ways, and help families create their own narratives together.

Coping
 [Worry box; Worry Chatterbox; My Feelings at School Chart; My Grief Den; Scream & Shout Box; Angry & Mad Box; Breathing & Balancing; Your Sleeping Brain; School Support Card; A Card for a Good Friend; A Massive Plaster, Where does it hurt?; My Paperchain People; Daily Timetable; Help Around The House]

Different activities to help children find ways to cope and seek reassurance. Children can choose the activities that resonate with them.

Information

Pip’s Journey

Journey#1  Pip Has Fun. Reinforces that having fun whilst a parent is sick is OK

Journey#2. Pip Goes To Hospital. Photos of spaces and equipment they might see in a hospital to help prepare or help them visualise where their parent might be staying.

Journey#3. Pip Explores Inside A Hospice Photos of what a child might see within a hospice to help them prepare a visit or help them visualise where their parent is staying.

What is Cancer?
Basic age appropriate understanding of what cancer is. Common questions and answers are written to dispel any myths.

What is a Hospice?
Understanding what hospices are and how they differ from hospitals. Helping to familiarise the setting for children.

Death, Dying and Grief
Honest clear age appropriate understanding of what happens when someone is dying and then dead. Provides information the children may not feel able to bring up in conversation with their grown-ups.

Glossary

Simple meanings of words children are most likely to hear to help them understand and reduce anxieties