About this website

This is the children's website for Hearts&Minds’ Clowndoctors programme for children in hospital and hospice care in Scotland.  We hope that it will provide an additional point of contact and information for children who have enjoyed meeting the Clowndoctors.  In creating this site, we had a target age range of 5-11 years in mind.

About Hearts&Minds and the Clowndoctors

This website belongs to the registered Scottish charity Hearts&Minds, which runs the Clowndoctors arts-in-health programme.  The Clowndoctors are a team of professional, paid performing artists who are trained to work with children in a health care setting.  They visit children aged 6 months to 16 years at:

• The Royal Hospitals for Sick Children in Glasgow and Edinburgh
• The Royal Aberdeen Childrens Hospital
• Rachel House in Kinross
• Robin House in Balloch
• Sunndach and Calareidh Houses (houses for children with complex nursing needs, run by Lothian Health Board)
• Ninewells Hospital in Dundee
• Raigmore Hospital in Inverness

More information about our work can be found by visiting the Hearts&Minds’ website (click here), including our Elderflowers programme for elderly people with dementia in hospital.

About the ‘Contact the Clowndoctors’ section

A feature of this site is that children can send messages to the Clowndoctor or Clowndoctors of their choice.  They can also receive a personal reply. This is carried out by email and is NOT a chat room facility.  Children must ask for permission from parents or carers before they use these features.

The Contact the Clowndoctors section is particularly aimed at children who would have met the Clowndoctors and who would like to send a message to them after they return home or following a visit.  However a child does not have to have had met the Clowndoctors in order to send them a message.

How messages are dealt with through the site:

• Children must ask a parent or carer for permission before they send a message to the Clowndoctors.
• Messages are received by Hearts&Minds’ office staff before being forwarded to the Clowndoctor(s) it was sent to.
• Whenever possible, replies will be personal and written by one of the Clowndoctors to whom the message was sent.  This also means that it may take up to ten days for a reply to be sent back.
• Hearts&Minds’ office staff are Disclosure Scotland checked and the Clowndoctors have been Disclosure Scotland checked and cleared to work in hospital with children.
• Hearts&Minds’ office staff will not disclose children’s email addresses to the Clowndoctors.  Instead office staff will forward the Clowndoctor’s reply back to the child. Children's email addresses will only be used for the purpose of sending a reply to their message.
• Hearts&Minds reserves the right not to reply to messages for whatever reason, for example messages which are abusive or inappropriate.