Thank you to the National Lottery Community Fund

Although it may look like Giggle Doctors are always being silly and fun, it actually takes a lot of hard work and dedicated learning to work in a hospital environment with children, and this is why we’re so grateful to the National Lottery Community Fund for supporting us this year. With their funding, we have been able to train 4 new performing artists to become Giggle Doctors and provide additional training the whole team!

In 2024, we welcomed 4 ‘Trainee Giggle Doctors’ and throughout this year, with the support of the National Lottery Community Fund, they have completed a series of development visits to refine their skills. It’s been successes all round, and by the end of the summer they will all have graduated to ‘Senior Giggle Doctor’ status, meaning they can work independently and confidently to create unique moments of magic with children in hospital.

The generosity of National Lottery Community Fund is helping us not only to expand our work by training new artists, it’s also allowing us to grow the work of our current artists through providing training and development opportunities. Training continues even after our artists become Senior Giggle Doctors and is tailored to meets the current needs of children and families in hospital.

This year, we organised a training session focused on working with young people with Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities (PMLD) – on the wards. As the Giggle Doctors meet children who communicate in various ways, it is crucial that we are able to offer equally enriching and child-centered interactions to all no matter a child’s illness, disability or complex need.

Nurturing well-being is important for everyone, but it is especially important that we take care of our Giggle Doctors because working in hospitals can be emotionally challenging. Thanks to the National Lottery Community Fund, this year we were able to develop our well-being programme providing Giggle Doctors with the space to work through the emotional difficulties of working in hospitals. 

The National Lottery Community Fund does amazing work in supporting small charities like us. With recent changes in the UK economy, fundraising has become harder for lots of charities with smaller organisations particularly struggling, and so for us, and thanks to the National Lottery players’ support we can focus more of our efforts on continuously developing the skills of our Giggle Doctors, meaning more children can experience the transformative power of play.

-Alfie Brine, Giggle Doctor Programme Administrator