Inaugurated in 1987, Starlight Children’s Foundation provides imaginative programmes to improve the quality of life for children with life-threatening illnesses, especially those from poorer areas of the country. Starlight achieves this by granting children’s wishes, organizing outings from hospitals, organizing children’s parties in hospitals, providing mobile fun centres for children undergoing severe treatment, and more recently the distribution of distraction boxes to nurses for children undergoing treatment.

The prototype distraction boxes proved an instant hit with the children and medical staff reported that the children were able to sustain significantly more severe and considerably longer periods of treatment with their use. The small, self-contained boxes are full of little games, toys, and fun items such as finger puppets, and are invaluable in taking the child’s mind off the various unpleasant medical procedures that are being undertaken.

The BWCF assisted substantially in funding a project to produce and distribute the boxes on a national scale with the ultimate objective of locating at least one distraction box in each of the 600 children’s wards in 300 hospitals in the UK. By the end of the summer of 2005, this project is now well under way with over 1,000 boxes being manufactured and distributed.