Angela Locke is always willing to help at H11B
March is Child Life Month, a month where hospitals celebrate child life specialists and the Child Life profession through education and awareness of their work. To honor these dedicated professionals during the month of March, CMN Hospitals will highlight the top 10 nominees submitted for the 2020 Delta Child Life Specialist of the Year award.
At Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, there is an inpatient unit called H11B.
H11B is unique for two reasons. The first is that it has multiple services housed on one floor — including Gastroenterology, Endocrinology, Genetics, Hospital Pediatrics, Rheumatology and Nephrology. The second is Angela Locke.
Angela is a Child Life Specialist. She works with patients with many different diagnoses and medical teams, which can be quite hectic at times. But, Angela is always smiling and willing to help.
In her role, Angela provides individualized psychosocial and emotional care to patients and their families, including siblings. Her specialty is helping each child cope with their hospitalization and understand their diagnosis and procedures in developmentally appropriate ways.
One moment, Angela may be using a teaching doll to explain how an IV works with a 5 year old, helping them practice coping strategies and coaching them throughout the procedure. The next moment, she may be using medical play and a human body app to help a school-aged child understand, rehearse and emotionally process their new diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes. Then, she might meet with a teenager to help them feel comfortable talking to their doctors and expressing their fears in a peer coaching session with other teenagers in the unit.
No matter what, it seems like you’ll always find Angela helping a child reframe their hospital experience in a more positive way and helping families create special memories in spite of difficult circumstances. Many patients even request Angela’s services when they return for outpatient services because she was so impactful to them during their hospital stay.
One patient shared their experience working with Angela:
“Angela is so special because I had to have a procedure, and I was scared. Angela came to the waiting room with me for half an hour before my procedure and talked to me. Then, when it was time to take me back to the procedure, she stayed in there with me and held my hand until I fell asleep. She is super!”
Angela’s compassionate care and understanding toward her patients and her colleagues helps make everyone feel comfortable through uncomfortable situations.
Angela is from Ohio and is a Buckeye at heart. She loves s’mores, the outdoors and travel. She loves spending time with her Wheaten Terrier. When she isn’t working at the hospital, Angela is also a children’s pastor.
Child Life Specialists help normalize the hospital experience and bring joy and comfort to hospitalized kids and their families. Many of the funds raised by CMN Hospitals are used to fund Child Life programs and help make up the gap between what government and insurance pay for and the actual cost of caring for kids in our member hospitals.