Ryan's Case for Smiles

The organization provides tools and resources to help siblings and parents cope with the emotional trauma that comes with a life-threatening childhood illness in the family. As many as 80 percent of pediatric patients and their families experience symptoms of traumatic stress after an illness, injury, hospitalization or medical procedure, according to the national child traumatic stress network. Siblings are usually the forgotten ones. Case for Smiles is focused on offering information about how to deal with traumatic stress for the whole family and devloping materials to train child-life specialists to recognize and address symptoms of post-traumatic stress in all family members.