While medical care is an essential part of our treatment program, we believe that the psychosocial support services that we offer to our patients and their families are an integral part of their care. The psychosocial staff are specially trained in pediatric hematology/oncology support services.

Our social workers provide family assessment, education and supportive counseling to assist children and their families in adjusting to the diagnosis, as well as the adaptation to an often long treatment course. Our social workers coordinate the appropriate community referrals and assist with practical concerns.

Our child life specialist conducts a psychosocial support program in the play area of our treatment center. In a comfortable non-threatening atmosphere, this specialist uses play to help the children express their feelings and to help them focus on getting well. For more information about Child Life Services at Cedars-Sinai, click here.

The Amie Karen Cancer Fund for Children and the Pediatric Hematology-Oncology team founded Camp Rainbow in 1984. This unique, week-long camp is designed to provide children and their siblings, between the ages of 7 and 17, with a positive group living experience.

What makes Camp Rainbow unique is its staff of doctors and nurses who currently treat these children at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. This camper-counselor relationship adds a new dimension to the patient-doctor relationship, allowing the young children to see their caretaker in a fun, carefree setting.

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center's Good Beginnings organization is the support group for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Good Beginnings' purpose is to promote and advance the care of newborn infants at Cedars-Sinai.

The organization offers an array of outreach services and programs to benefit both families and NICU staff free of charge. Some of our programs and initiatives include facilitating a variety of weekly forums for parent-to-parent support where former NICU parents can guide and help other families through their NICU journey, hosting infant-care education opportunities for families being discharged with special needs infants, providing extensive bereavement support to families experiencing a loss, offering continued education to the NICU staff, as well as funding neonatal medical research. To learn more, visit the Good Beginnings website.