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Child Life

How a Child Life Specialist Can Help Your Child and Family

In collaboration with your family and other healthcare providers, the role of the Child Life Specialist is to

  • Improve a child’s understanding of stressful healthcare and life experiences.
  • Foster an environment that incorporates emotional support.
  • Identify and support strengths within the family.
  • Facilitate continued child development and growth.

    • Child life Services Include:

  • Non-medical preparation for tests, surgeries, and other procedures.
  • Medical play using special dolls, stuffed animals and medical equipment.
  • Special events, entertainment and play activities that promote normal development and growth among infants, children and adolescents.
  • Support for siblings who are also affected by a child’s illness or trauma.
  • Pre-admission hospital tours and resources, and consultations with outpatient families.
  • Support for grief and bereavement concerns.

    • Additional responsibilities:

  • Collaborate with members of the interdisciplinary team, including doctors, nurses, mental health professionals, social workers, and other representatives from pediatric disciplines.
  • Supervise and train child life students and volunteers.
  • Support hospital educational programs.
  • Coordinate donations and seek sources for program funding.
  • Educate parents and the public-at-large on the needs of children.

    • Resourceful Websites

    Child Life Council

    DID YOU KNOW?

    Nearly twice as many children die from Congenital Heart Defects in the United States each year as from all forms of childhood cancers combined.

    Yet funding for pediatric cancer research is 5 times higher than funding for Congenital Heart Defects.
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