Jul 16, 2026 · 33 min · 11 segments
In this episode we are joined by Meredith Cooper and Missi Hicks, cofounders of Wonders & Worries. Listen as they discuss their experiences as Child Life Specialists and the founding of Wonders and…
Missi HicksGuest
Meredith CooperGuestJulieHostWell,
through a shared passion for supporting children when it was their parent with a serious illness.
We had both been child life specialists working with children that had cancer and realized the incredible need that was there for children when it was their parent or primary caregiver that was experiencing the illness.
It's always fun to remind people that are listening that we connected through our profession, child life.
But I was in the midst of getting my OPC as well to prepare me for this additional work, working with adults with illness when Missy moved to Austin.
of serendipitous, really, that I was relocating to Austin and So I reached out to Meredith on a whim.
I was fortunate to be very involved with our professional association, Association for Child Life Professionals, called Child Life Council at that moment, way back in 25 years ago.
I just sort of made a cold call to her and said, you're a child life specialist.
And so when we connected, it was sort of just sort of like everything aligned perfectly.
You know, we both were working in hospital based settings, understanding the needs of children with cancer, getting consulted to the adult service lines at those institutions.
And really both had that really strong desire to, one, fill the gap for those children of adult patients.
But then, too, really thinking about our childlike background in a hospital setting, our sort of counseling trajectory that we were on, sort of looking at that skill set.
But then also importance of community-based programming, because I think we both had realized that when you're in a hospital and you're looking to refer out to somebody, sometimes it's hard to find someone with that same lens.
You know, we weren't looking for necessarily children who were impacted by COVID.
a clinical mental health diagnosis, but really a typical child coping with an atypical situation.
Well,
through a shared passion for supporting children when it was their parent with a serious illness.
We had both been child life specialists working with children that had cancer and realized the incredible need that was there for children when it was their parent or primary caregiver that was experiencing the illness.
It's always fun to remind people that are listening that we connected through our profession, child life.
But I was in the midst of getting my OPC as well to prepare me for this additional work, working with adults with illness when Missy moved to Austin.
of serendipitous, really, that I was relocating to Austin and So I reached out to Meredith on a whim.
I was fortunate to be very involved with our professional association, Association for Child Life Professionals, called Child Life Council at that moment, way back in 25 years ago.
I just sort of made a cold call to her and said, you're a child life specialist.
And so when we connected, it was sort of just sort of like everything aligned perfectly.
You know, we both were working in hospital based settings, understanding the needs of children with cancer, getting consulted to the adult service lines at those institutions.
And really both had that really strong desire to, one, fill the gap for those children of adult patients.
But then, too, really thinking about our childlike background in a hospital setting, our sort of counseling trajectory that we were on, sort of looking at that skill set.
But then also importance of community-based programming, because I think we both had realized that when you're in a hospital and you're looking to refer out to somebody, sometimes it's hard to find someone with that same lens.
You know, we weren't looking for necessarily children who were impacted by COVID.
a clinical mental health diagnosis, but really a typical child coping with an atypical situation.
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