Mentor of the Year: Claire Hardy

We’re proud to announce this year’s Mentor of the Year is Claire Hardy, the Lead Health Play Specialist for Radiotherapy Services at University College London Hospitals. Claire has been working in this field for the last 20 years, and is a regular proponent for the field and mentor for new starters.

This award is brand new this year, and extra special as all nominees were nominated by a fellow colleague they have gone out of their way to mentor since they joined the team.

Claire was nominated by Katie, her colleague she’s been mentoring for the past two years. Katie joined in the midst of the pandemic, and initially had trouble adjusting. Fortunately, Claire has been there for her to provide the extra support Katie needs to thrive in her career.

On top of mentoring Katie, Claire is supporting and providing play to children and young people as they undergo radiotherapy or proton beam therapy treatment. This support begins as they first meet the doctor in the clinic. By building a relationship with them and learning what they like and what their interests are, Claire is able to plan their treatment pathway and decide how she can best support them.

But throughout each child and young person’s treatment pathway, Claire ensures play as both a distraction technique and for entertainment is as involved as it can be.

Claire strongly believes in ensuring children have choice in play. Therefore, Claire and her colleagues always ensure each child has a variety of age-appropriate toys ready (and cleaned) to play with whenever they’re in hospital. She regularly relies on the toys and activities Starlight provides in our Distraction and Boost Boxes whenever a child is having to undergo a treatment and needs to stay still, such as having a cannula inserted or when they’re going through radiotherapy.

Furthermore, she always tries to include the family as much as she can, and when appropriate set up opportunities for the children on her ward to play with others who are going through similar situations.

We’re so happy to have Claire as our very first Mentor of the Year recipient. The work she is doing both in providing play for seriously ill children and young people at her hospital and in mentoring the new generation of Health Play Specialists is incredible and we’re so proud of her.

Visit our 2022 Play in Hospital Week hub to learn more about this year’s winners and see how else we’re celebrating.