Smile Foundation was established more than 20 years ago by successful Hungarian businessmen who decided to share their resources with the community in order to help children who were deprived of their joyful childhood by a chronic disease or difficult life situation. Both the structure of the foundation and the program portfolio were developed with the involvement of professionals based on thorough assessment of local needs. We have gone through considerable organizational and program development during the past two decades yet we still aim to maintain the core values set by our founders such as high professional standards, innovation and transparency.
Smile Foundation today is a Budapest based non-profit organisation with free of charge therapy programs available in 3 different cities in Hungary. In the Budapest office stable staff takes responsibility for planning, organizing and implementing programs and fundraising. Our supportive therapy sessions are an effective complement to the hospital treatment process, and our long-term therapy programmes help with post-treatment rehabilitation. We usually work with 15-20 professionals (clinical psychologists, art therapists and supervisors).
We follow and document the development of children based on Smile Foundation’s monitoring system and the respective legal regulations. The development of our programs is based on thorough assessments and feedbacks. We personally supervise the utilization of money with the most suitable methods designed to specific projects.
Our art therapists and psychologists are highly qualified professionals who are coming from different backgrounds with their own experiences which create a unique mixture of knowledge. Their knowledge can guide them to find the most appropriate method for therapy sessions which specifically adapt to the children’s needs. Therefore they can provide mental support as well as creating colourful and joyful experience for children during their hospital stay.
Art therapy is a form of therapy for children and adults that use art materials and artistic expression to support awareness, understanding and expression of feelings in a way they may not be able to do so by using words and thoughts.
Painting, drawing, playing and listening to music and other artistic techniques are widely applied in therapies all over the world. The specialty of our complex therapy method is that we have adapted the methods for different hospital circumstances, children’s specific life situations and their diverse illnesses.
Our therapists mainly use: