The Little Beads Program has been established to offer a positive experience to children who are diagnosed with a serious, long-term illness.
These children often have many hospital stays and outpatient visits and during these times the children may need to go through medical procedures that can be painful and traumatic. Children are wonderfully resilient and often, at these times, their courage and strength are awe inspiring, but dealing with these procedures is never easy for them or their families.
The Little Star Beads program offers children little rewards for their medical procedures in the form of unique beads. The beads are strung together to create a string of beads that will tell the story of each child’s personal, medical journey.
The string of beads will become a very special memento for the children and their families, and a symbol of pride and courage for all of the challenges that they have overcome.
If your child has been diagnosed with a serious long term illness, and requires regular medical treatment, they are eligible for the Little Star Beads program.
We welcome children from birth to 12 years to our program, regardless of the type or date of their diagnosis.
Some of our bead programs are specifically targeted to children and some are for babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Units in various hospitals. In Canberra we have the Tiny Little Star Beads program for the babies in our NICU. Some of them earn well over 100 beads before they go home for the very first time.
The Tiny and Little Star Beads Programs are slowly rolling out through the rest of Australia. If you have a child with a serious illness and would like to find out if they are available in your area, please contact us.