Facility dogs Becky and Kaia visit state capitol

From left, Alicia Cesare, Megan Blashford, Erin Shaffer, Pennsylvania State Rep. Tom Mehaffie and Ashley Kane pose with Kaia and Becky at the Penn State Health Children's Hospital Lunch and Learn event.

Penn State Health Children’s Hospital’s four-legged Child Life Program employees helped their handlers, Ashley Kane and Erin Shaffer, give a presentation to staff and members of the state legislature on Oct. 4. The Lunch and Learn event took place at the Pennsylvania State Capitol.

Facility dogs Becky and Kaia went along, while Kane and Shaffer talked about the Child Life Program at the Children’s Hospital, which provides psychosocial support, diagnosis education and normalization opportunities to children and their families during every stage of care. Megan Blashford, a recreational therapist in the Children’s Hospital pediatric intermediate care unit, and Alicia Cesare, Child Life specialist for pediatric radiology, also assisted with the event.

Becky and Kaia work as facility dogs with the Child Life Program full-time, helping young patients in radiation/oncology as well as inpatients. They are the only full-time children’s hospital facility dogs in Pennsylvania. Nationwide, about 30 children’s hospitals have facility dogs.

The Lunch and Learn was presented by the Children’s Hospital.

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