Child Life Specialist Personal Statement

Alex is a seven year old Caucasian female. She is struggling emotionally and socially. She was held back in the first grade. Alex has been involved with The Department of Children and Families (DCF) since she was born. The mission statement of The Department of Children and Families is to, “Strive to protect children from abuse and neglect and, in partnership with families and communities, ensure children are able to grow and thrive in a safe and nurturing environment.” (Commonwealth of Massachusetts, "About the Department of Children & Families", 2015)

Personal attributes vital to the performance of a Child Life Specialist include the following: the ability to communicate well, to work well with others, and to provide patients and their families with support in times of stress.

I am a qualified Childcare Practitioner with 12 years’ experience, who would love the opportunity to embark on a career as a Primary Teacher. I am currently employed in a local authority pre-five nursery class within a Primary School. I aspire to become a teacher as I feel it will offer me new challenges and a chance to further develop my love of teaching. I am a dedicated worker and continually strive to provide high standards. I also promote confidence, respect and compassion to ensure all members of the nursery and school are respected.

One of the greatest pieces of advice that I have received is that if you do something that you love, you will never work a day in your life. It took me changing my major three times to find what I am truly passionate about. After I changed my major to child and family studies I enjoyed learning everyday and applying what I learned from class into the real world. The knowledge that I obtained through my classes assisted me through my experiences as a nanny, a student worker for the department of child and family studies at Tarleton, and lastly through my internship at Gladney Center for Adoption this past summer. I had thought about pursuing a MSW since I switched to child and family studies. The few social work classes I was enrolled in have been some of my favorite material. Ultimately my internship through Gladney and my passion for adoption led to my final decision to pursue a masters in social work.

Child Life Specialists are health care professionals responsible for providing needed emotional support to children and their families during at time of great stress. The role of Child Life include, creating activities to help children cope with hospitalization. My motivations and goals in this profession are to overall help the well-being of children. Beside, addressing the emotional needs of all involved, which will help the child have a stronger emotional support system. As well as, being trusted and relied on as a safe caregiver.

Cultural competence can be defined as using the ability of one’s awareness, attitude, knowledge and skill to effectively interact with a patient’s many cultural differences. Madeline Leininger, a pioneer on transcultural nursing describes it this way; “a formal area of study and practice focused on comparative human-care differences and similarities of the beliefs, values and patterned lifeways of cultures to provide culturally congruent, meaningful, and beneficial health care to people” (Barker, 2009, p. 498). The importance of cultural diversity in healthcare allows for the delivery of appropriate cultural autonomy. Showing respect for others will lead to trust between nurse and

Evaluation of how family subscribes to these traditions and practices is offered in detail, while offering insight and/or reflection.It is essential for nurses to provide culturally sensitive care to each and every patient in order to establish repor and maintain a safe working relationship with each individual. To provide culturally sensitive care to a nurses patient’s he or she must first assess their own beliefs, values, and culture at large. The nurse can do this by using the Heritage Assessment Tool. This tool shows the nurse how important their heritage is to them and if they have adopted their ways of life from their family’s history and influence. This gives the nurse a starting point

Organization and Problem-Solving: you have to help your patients out with their problems, it can be something major like helping them walk up the stairs or something small like buttoning up there shirt. Compassionate Care: give your patients the support they need to help them get through their daily life things, you both might get frustrated but you can’t let them see you get frustrated and be there for them and help them out. Yes I think I’m a good fit for this career because I love working with kids and to help them and to see them making progress doing daily things that we do

Why I choose The Career? I chose this career because I love babies and children, I thought it would be a fun job. Although I do know that I will have some patients with medical problems, but I will be the

After completing my child life internship experience at Norton Healthcare, which was comprehensive, unique, and diverse, I have been able to take a step back and see which rotations and which hospital environment I preferred and which I fit into best. I believe that it is important that a child life specialist is aware of where they best fit in the hospital environment based on his or her training, background, and personality. This can aid in eliminating burnout and turnover rates, because if a child life specialist is in the correct area they will be less likely to leave their current placement or switch units. However, I realize that with the current employment opportunities available in the field of child life that finding your preferred

Culture includes the customs, traditions, ideas, and ways of interacting with the environment that often differ in various parts of the world. Over the last several decades in the U.S. there has been a growing awareness and tolerance of cultures other than the traditional western culture in the community. And in healthcare we are expected to provide all patients and families with the same respect and treatment, but at the same time provide individualized care. In order to meet these standards the work place environment has responded with training and education on cultural competence. The term cultural competence can be defined by the ability to respect and understand the beliefs and attitudes of

Becoming a Child life specialist and majoring in this profession has its advantages and disadvantages to it. Disadvantages to this career are all the stress that one might have while working with children and also a lot of the people that work In this career have to have a lot of patience with kids because if in situation where a child might have to go into surgery the child might act bad towards certain news like that and might start having tantrums and you would have to calm them down and making an effort to work with them, but it’s not all about the kids but also the parents for example again in the same situation a child is going into surgery and one of the parents does not agree with that happening and they would start trying to argue with you or the nurses and being as a child life specialist it is

Understanding cultural issues among the community can improve health based on needs of the community. Choosing appropriate methods of care is challenging in implementing an educational plan. It is important for the health care providers to develop skills and knowledge when caring for people from other cultures. Assessments should include understanding strengths, weakness, resources and needs of the community.

This exposure to the cultural diversity has helped me through the process of developing culturally competent care. The various models described in chapter 4 are crucial to understand the continuum of the culturally congruent care. The model described by Campinha-Bacote (2002) define five essential constructs necessary for culturally

Some of these classes pertain to issues that parents face with regards to their well being. As previously cited a lack of conflict resolution within a partnership, can hinder a mother’s development of individual well being which ultimately affects the child. By illustrating within our presentation that the relationship between the maternal and paternal figures in the infant’s life, we develop the infant’s individual well being by addressing the well being of the parents.