Big Apple Circus Trains Nursing Students in ‘Clown Care’ To Bring Joy to Sick Children

      For the Big Apple Circus, caring for sick children is much more than fun and games. For 22 years, the nonprofit circus has run a Clown Care program, bringing entertainers to 19 pediatric facilities across the United States. Developed by Michael Christensen, the co-founder and creative director of the circus, the program provides performers with extensive training in understanding and relating to the emotional trauma of children in the hospital.
      It was a chance encounter between College of Nursing Clinical Instructor Betty Leef, her students, and a group of auditioning clowns in a hallway at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York that led the circus and NYU to develop the first Clown Care training program for nursing students. During fall 2008, Christensen and his colleagues Deborah Kaufman and Karen McCarty held eight, three-hour workshops for groups of 16 to 18 students. A total of 132 second-semester College of Nursing seniors, who were in the midst of their pediatrics rotations, participated.
      “The skills that the clowns bring are techniques that everyone can benefit from,” says Leef. “They bring joy and lightness to very sick children, and they often have a unique ability to connect with children when no one else can.”
      A central goal of the nursing-student training was to increase nurses’ peripheral awareness when they enter a room and to help them understand how their own body language is perceived by a child in a bed or crib. Leef, who teaches pediatric nursing, was glad to have found an innovative way to discuss with students the emotional aspects of pediatric care. She says that there are certain ways of relating to children—who can’t always verbalize their feelings— that cannot be emphasized enough.
      “Being a compassionate nurse is something that can truly affect a patient’s life, especially if that patient is a child,” said College of Nursing Dean Terry Fulmer. “Our Clown Care Program provides NYU nursing students with the necessary skills to create a positive experience in sometimes difficult situations.”