The Difference We Make

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) are one of our longest standing supporters. They’ve not only helped to fund our Giggle Doctor visits but they have also helped to support the charity to grow over time. Recently, Margeaux, a member of staff from GSK has joined our team for six months to help us improve our impact measurement. Here Margeaux explains the project in more detail:

“I am very excited to be working with Theodora Children’s Charity on this project. Impact measurement is about showing how the Giggle Doctors help to bring about positive, meaningful changes for children in hospital. Before I joined the charity, they had already started to measure the benefits of a Giggle Doctor visit, but being a small team they needed some extra help to really capture the impact of the visits.

In order to improve our impact measurement, I split the project into three steps: 

• Firstly, I worked with the team to develop a formal ‘Theory of Change’. With help from the Giggle Doctors we discussed the charity’s goals, the need they are trying to address (improving children’s experience of the medical environment), and how the Giggle Doctor visits aim to achieve this.   
• The second step is to understand more about the children, parents and hospitals that we are working with. This will help us better understand the needs of the children our Giggle Doctors visit. To do this we will be setting up a survey on our website (and asking parents and children to give us their feedback on how they found the Giggle Doctor visit.
• The third step will be to improve the ways we measure the impact we are making.  We know that being in hospital can cause anxiety, boredom and isolation for children. We want to make sure our Giggle Doctor visits are helping to reduce these feelings and increase opportunities for play. We will be piloting this part of the project over the coming months. 

We look forward to sharing more with you as the project develops and showing you the difference that your donations have on the children we visit. 

If you have had a visit from a Giggle Doctor and want to complete our survey please click on the link below and you’ll have the chance to win a £50 gift voucher.