Camilla Gryski - Bio

Camilla Gryski has worked and played with children for over thirty years, as a teacher, librarian, storyteller and writer, and therapeutic clown. She holds masters degrees in library science and holistic and aesthetic education, and a certificate in the Foundations of Expressive Arts. Her particular area of expertise is the therapeutic value of play and humour. For nine years, she worked as Posy, the therapeutic clown for the Haematology/Oncology program, at SickKids in Toronto Camilla, and her clown Flora, are currently contracted by the Palliative and Bereavement Care Service at SickKids. In 2004, her clown Posy received the Today's Parent magazine For Kids' Sake Award.

Selected Memberships

The Ontario Association of Consultants, Counsellors, Psychometrists and Psychotherapists, The International Expressive Arts Therapy Association, Canadian Association of Therapeutic Clowns, The Writers' Union of Canada, The Canadian Society of Children's Authors, Illustrators and Performers.

Selected Publications

"Play Conversation." Hospital Clown Newsletter, 4(2): 1, 4-5.
"The Magic Circle." Hospital Clown Newsletter, 5(3): 5. "Creating the Play Space." Hospital Clown Newsletter, 6(2): 19-20
With Shobhana Schwebke. "Gravity and Levity" "Pain and Play: The Child and the Clown in the Pediatric Health Care Setting." In Amelia Klein (Ed.), Humor in Children's Lives. Praeger, 2003
"Stepping over Thresholds." Poiesis: A Journal of the Arts and Communication, Vol. 5, pp. 94-99.
Transforming Performers: Clowns, Fools and Jesters in Children's Books. Friends of the Osborne and Lillian H. Smith Collections, Occasional Paper 4. Toronto: Friends of the Osborne and Lillian H. Smith Collections, 2004.
"Making Connections." Hospital Clown Newsletter, 9(4): 13-14
With Donna Koller. "The Life Threatened Child and the Life Enhancing Clown: Towards a Model of Therapeutic Clowning." Available at http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/nem033v1
"The role of the therapeutic clown in the care of children with progressive life- limiting conditions."Hotspot, Volume 9, Issue 4, November 2007.

Contact

cgryski@eol.ca
www.floraclown.ca