Holland Bloorview’s Snoezelen room allows clinicians to use a series of tools, including gentle vibrations and glowing strands of fibre optics, to alter a client’s sensory input based on their sensory needs.

Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital and Beit Issie Shapiro are joining forces to provide tailored multisensory training on a unique methodology called Issie Senses to the hospital’s inpatient Brain Injury Rehabilitation Team (BIRT). About 20 to 25 BIRT clinicians will participate in the renowned program, which will arm them with the knowledge, tools and best practices to become client-centred professionals within a multisensory environment, and enable them to draw on the full therapeutic potential of the environment when treating clients. Some clinicians are currently treating clients in such a space, but the Issie Senses technique will allow them to enhance the care they provide.

Created by Beit Issie Shapiro, Israel’s leading non-profit organization known internationally for its expertise in multisensory training, Issie Senses helps transform a multisensory environment—in this case, Holland Bloorview’s Snoezelen space—into a therapeutic instrument. Snoezelen is a hybrid of the Dutch words for sniff and doze, and represents the act of seeking out a place for relaxation.

Snoezelen environments give clinicians the opportunity to create a space that can awaken or reduce sensory input based on a client’s sensory needs. This allows the client—at Holland Bloorview, a child with an acquired brain injury—to be more receptive to therapeutic goals, as identified by their clinician and the client’s family members.

Using gentle vibrations, interactive switches that allow clients to control the colours in bubble tubes, vibrant images projected on walls, glowing strands of fibre optics that can be draped over the body, mirror balls, music and a host of other means, treatment in Snoezelen environments can result in the opportunity to promote family/parent engagement. It can also lead to socialization opportunities for caregivers and clients in a group setting, a stage for clinicians to introduce assistive technology and build on new and existing client skills and the opportunity for clients to become more comfortable participating in therapy goals.

“It is our hope that the partnership with Beit Issie will help us chart a staff Snoezelen training module that will encompass the collaborative practice of our hospital and support the many clinicians who recognize the potential of the intervention,” says Lorraine Thomas, Snoezelen coordinator at Holland Bloorview.

Janet Bernstein, occupational therapist on the BIRT unit at Holland Bloorview, adds, “This is an exciting opportunity for the members of BIRT. We look forward to understanding and learning about Beit Issie’s approach to using multisensory, or Snoezelen, rooms as a part of their therapeutic intervention.”

“We are excited to partner with Holland Bloorview. It is wonderful to join together with a like-minded organization committed to excellence in order to benefit its clients through innovative, impactful solutions,” says Sharon Yeheskel-Oron, director of global professional development at Beit Issie Shapiro. “We are hopeful that with Beit Issie Shapiro and Holland Bloorview’s complimentary expertise, Issie Senses will expand to become a therapeutic tool that helps clients grappling with brain injuries participate in their lives to the best of their ability.”

The collaboration is part of Holland Bloorview’s ongoing mandate to provide innovative care. It is also an acknowledgement of the need to reflect the multidisciplinary teams that provide care to clients—BIRT includes specialists in occupational therapy, physiotherapy, therapeutic recreation, psychology, respirology, child life, social work and nursing.

Beit Issie Shapiro will run the virtual training from November 2020 to January 2021. Participating clinicians on the BIRT unit will learn together as a group as well as independently based on their respective schedules. The project is a collaboration between BIRT and client and family integrated care. It is sponsored by Diane Savage, vice president, experience and transformation at Holland Bloorview.

In 2018, Holland Bloorview was part of a team that published a limited research study in the Journal of Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine exploring the effects of Snoezelen on children requiring complex continuing care.