Provide innovative, arts-in-medicine supportive care programs for children coping with serious illness, their families, and the health care providers who care for them.
Every Beads of Courage® program integrates the use of beads, the earliest art form known to humans, as visible, tangible symbols of human experiences that need and deserve to be expressed. Every time a bead is given courage is honored, suffering is alleviated, resilience is strengthened, and the experience of human caring is affirmed.
Beads of Courage, Inc. is an approved public charity under I.R.S. Code Section 501(c)(3), based in Tucson, Arizona.
Jean Gribbon, developed the first Beads of Courage, Inc. program while working on her PhD in Nursing at the University of Arizona, College of Nursing. Her inspiration came from her clinical practice, and from her experiences as a camp nurse at one of Paul Newman’s Hole in the Wall Gang Camps. With the financial support of her family and friends, Jean developed and piloted the Beads of Courage Program at Phoenix Children’s Hospital in February 2003. As part of the development, the following critical tasks were completed:
Following the completion of the above development activities, an ongoing evaluation of the pilot Program at Phoenix Children’s Hospital was conducted to determine its impact on the children who participated in the Program and on the staff who implemented it. Preliminary evaluation findings were presented at three national peer-reviewed research meetings:
Beads of Courage is a member of the following organizations:
Thank you for taking the time to visit our website, and for having the courage to care. We are Beads of Courage, Inc. a 501(c) 3 tax-exempt organization dedicated to helping children with serious illness record, tell and own their stories of survival.
We have been working diligently to transform the treatment experience for children coping with chronic, life threatening illness through our arts-in-medicine programs.
In 11 years since our inception, our organization has established our programs in over 240 children’s hospitals in the United States, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom and Japan. Our growth is evidence of the need for the type of support Beads of Courage provides for children coping with serious illness.
Thank you for your interest, support and genuine concern for children coping with serious illness, their families, and the health care providers who care for them.
Jean Gribbon, RN, BSN, PhD
Executive Director and Founder
