Child Life and Developmental Services - HIV+ Teen Program

Adolescence is the period from puberty to young adulthood, during which the maturing child must negotiate the formation of a sense of self and spawning identity, in order to have a sense of a personal future. HIV-infected teens face the typical storminess of adolescence as well as the stressors of living with a chronic illness. These teens must cope with the rigors of ongoing medical care and strict medication compliance and the psychosocial experiences of shame, isolation, hopelessness, bereavement associated with compounded losses, and the eventual possibility of illness and early death. They must also cope with the implications and impact of their disease on sexual and romantic development. As is the case with many of our teens, these challenges are heaped onto a tottery developmental foundation of incomplete or disordered mastery of earlier stages of psychosocial formation.

Natalie Schrape, a Child Life therapist, has created one of the few support groups in the greater New York area for this specialized population. Some goals of the group include facilitating expression, reducing feelings of isolation, encouraging peer interaction, and creating an experience of belonging and relatedness.

The group is highly successful as the teenagers actively continue to seek out attendance thereby increasing their capacity to form a working alliance with adults and tolerance to engage in non-verbal as well as verbal expression and problem solving. The group is conducted to coincide with medical visits, so the adolescents receive medical and emotional support, partnering to increase medical compliance by the patient.

Click here for the TEAC Newsletter for Fall 2002

Click here for the TEAC Newsletter for Winter 2002

Click here for the TEAC Newsletter for Spring 2003

Any further questions?  Please contact
Natalie Schrape, M.S., A.T.R.
Art Therapist
(212) 562-2098
schrapen@bellevue.nychhc.org

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