Home Cool Company Awards 2012 Meet TLC for Kids, Anthill 2012 Cool Company Award Finalist

Meet TLC for Kids, Anthill 2012 Cool Company Award Finalist [Social Capitalist Category]

1

Show your support for this outstanding company. Tweet this article. “Like” this post. Leave a comment. Share the love!

What are the Anthill Cool Company Awards?

The Cool Company Awards were launched in 2006 as a way for Anthill to acknowledge and celebrate Australian organisations that are doing things differently to bring about positive change. Cool Companies stay one step ahead of the rest. They breed leaders who are rule-makers and rule-breakers. They are trend-setters in attitude and action. Quite simply, they are … cool! More.

TLC for Kids

Company: TLC for Kids
Website: TLCforkids.org.au
State: VIC
Category: Social Capitalist

Most distractions are bad for business. A study even suggests that large companies lose over $10 million per year to wasted time. (We immediately forwarded the study to our colleagues, who retweeted it to their colleagues, and a mass chain of workplace stagnation ensued.)

Yet there is a time and place in which distraction isn’t just a good thing, but a noble goal — and for TLC for Kids, it’s actually its raison d’etre.

Every day, thousands of children in Australian hospitals undergo examinations, surgeries, and potentially risky life-saving treatment — beyond any choice or understanding of their own. TLC for Kids acts as a relief agency to give these kids immediate attention. The not-for-profit company’s hallmark tool, officially known as the Distraction Box, contains toys, games and other distraction devices that help children through scary scenarios almost without them realising it.

And TLC’s services extend to the whole family, sometimes well after the child has left the hospital. Families may be just scraping by to pay for treatment. Parents can fall under the weight of stress and psychological hardship.

In spite of the quantity and scope of these challenges, TLC has never refused a child patient or put kids on waiting lists. Indeed, its reach affects 30% of all Australian kids in hospital every year.

“Our guiding principal is to maintain a needs-led service,” the TLC team wrote in their Cool Company application. “With the kids, we remove all forms of red tape and check-boxing — if a child in hospital is distressed, we’re there.”

All of this isn’t to say that these guys don’t know how to have fun. Stop by their offices any given day and you may find an igloo of Coke cans around the reception desk. “We know each other warts and all,” they wrote. “We’ve laughed so hard we’ve blown eye vessels, we’ve cracked it at each other, shared group hugs, mourned families’ losses.” This is more than just a way to make a living; it’s a means of embracing life itself.

“It’s not work, it couldn’t be farther from it. What on earth could be cooler than that?”

SHOW YOUR SUPPORT

You can show your support for this Cool Company in three ways:

1. Tweet this post:

Use the Tweet button at the top of this page. Your tweet will say:
Congratulations [Name], Anthill 2012 Cool Company finalist!

2. Trigger a reaction on Facebook: Hit the “Like” button, also top left.
3. Leave a comment: Show your support! Share the love!