The Importance Of Child Life Specialists

Communication is a crucial skill for every Child Life Specialist to possess as a professional. Each day the Child Life Specialist must communicate with not only the parents, but also the child and his or her siblings. However, the specialist cannot converse with children in the same manner they do with adults. Children require alternate means of communication because they are not always fully able to convey their thoughts and emotions with words alone. As a result, the Child Life Specialist may utilize therapeutic

Play is the universal language of children and allows children to express their emotions and individual responses to stressful situations. Play allows children to recreate crucial events that they have experienced and provides the child with a sense of control over the outcome of their play. The presence of a non-directive adult observer during play provides a companion for the child to recall difficult experiences and memories. Medical play is a way for children to work through the process of stressful medical experiences, where children cope with stressful healthcare experiences and can achieve mastery by creating positive outcomes in play. It is vital to understand coping strategies of children, since these approaches may affect their future reactions to healthcare situations. Children who have a sibling with a chronic illness can experience vicarious medical distress and their lives can be impacted by their siblings’ chronic illness. The researchers’ aim of this study was to observe and compare the reactions to medical trauma through play of children with medical illnesses, siblings of children with medical illness, and children who were healthy and did not have family members who were ill.

It was when I went to a career fair, and expressed my interest in becoming a non-traditional teacher, as well as working in a hospital setting, that I learn about the Child Life profession.

I want to become a Child Life specialist in the future. Child life specialists are trained professionals with knowledge in helping children and their families overcome some of life’s challenging and stressful events. Child life specialist have knowledge in child development and family systems, child life specialists promote effective coping through play, preparation, education, and self-expression activities(Child Life Council). They provide emotional and psychosocial support for children and families in a health care setting based on the individuals needs. Because they understand that a child’s wellbeing depends on the support of the family, child life specialists provide information, support and guidance to parents, siblings, and other family

children and families cope and adjust to the challenges of hospital visits. Although a child life

I went into this research paper thinking someone could tell me what a typical day would be like, but I learned that there is no typical day. Your patients are so diverse that they could have any number of varying conditions. You are working with children that could be days old all the way up to early adolescence. Each age group is treated differently, so this adds up a lot of variety to your day.(citytowninfo.com) Kids are so resilient, after you have had to take blood from them, give them a shot, or put in an IV. They can get so scared of you, but then you then they just jump back and have that one moment where they look at you and they give you a smile and you and the child both know everything is okay.

Hiring a child life specialist onto a team at a hospital will bring on many benefits. After families check their child into the pediatric unit and then admitted into their rooms, they can be visited by a child life specialist. There will be 1 child life specialist to every 3 families in the unit. This will allow the child life specialist to gain more one on one time with the patient and the family. They CCLS will be able to give a synopsis of what it is they exactly do and the many services they can provide for the patient and the family during their stay.

The medical assistant should prepare the child by letting them know what is about to take place. This can help to emphasize that it might hurt for a few seconds but the pain will go away quickly. The medical assistant can engage with the child and make the feel like a partner in the procedure. An example of this would be, making the child feel like they are a big boy or a big girl buy given them the option of helping through the procedure with their cooperation. Sometimes it can be a simplified explanation, such as “keeping you from getting sick”, may possible be enough to gain and older child’s compliance. The medical assistant may be able to use a distraction such as quiets voices, songs, pacifiers or bottles.

When I was job shadowing at the clinic I noticed that the colleagues know how to handle the medical issues with all the kids. Dr. Witt works in a favorable and helpful environment. The clinic obtained paintings on every wall in the rooms as well as a TV in the front of the clinic so the kids weren’t bored while waiting to see Dr.

Going through my education, I have acquired various skills to assist me on the road to becoming a physician. Devoting hundreds of hours to volunteering and shadowing in a hospital setting has given me a basic understanding of the care and patience required by physicians. In particular, shadowing a pediatrician helped me develop the ability of observation and acute attention to detail. I was given the opportunity to participate and interact with the patients and attempt to form my own diagnosis based on the given symptoms. Having the opportunity to input my own opinion and discussing the patient’s medical history with the physician assisted me in cultivating necessary characteristics such as versatility and keen intuition

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

The establishment of professional certification by the method of credentialing in 1986 was an enormous milestone for the Child Life Council. This landmark event demonstrated not only to other professionals, but to parents and families the level of expertise and dedication Certified Child Life Specialists have towards the betterment of a child’s life. Creating a systematic model for certification helped devise a standard of practice and ethical conduct for child life specialists that further displays the amount of professionalism among the members. This assists in establishing Certified Child Life Specialists as skilled and trained specialists.

It has been documented that children undergoing surgery and their families experience high levels of distress and perioperative anxiety. Stress and perioperative anxiety have the potential to cause more harm on post-surgical healing, in consideration of both physical and mental health, if not addressed promptly and properly. Child Life Specialists are pediatric healthcare professionals who are able to provide interventions to help reduce anxiety and increase developmental growth within pediatric patients, provide family centered care, and facilitating therapeutic play interventions for pediatric patients, all the while in the hospital environment (Child Life Council, 2014). Child life specialists are able to meet these values and missions to create a standard of practice that the American Pediatric Association recommends in all pediatric healthcare settings (Child Life Council, 2014). Typically, when child life specialists are working with pediatric patients undergoing anesthesia for surgical procedures they are able to participate as a part of the multidisciplinary health team to provide family centered care and increase a patient and their families understanding on the medical procedure at hand. A common intervention for pediatric patients undergoing anesthesia for surgical procedures include medical play and medical preparation sessions.

In 1962, the term “child life” first appeared in the publication Working with Children in Hospitals, by Emma Plank of the “Child Life and Education Department at Cleveland Metropolitan Hospital” (Wojtasik & White, 2009, p. 10). Plank presented a detailed description of the program. For instance, she emphasizes the need for child care workers to deal with each child on an individual and age-appropriate basis, pointing out that each child has unique needs,

York Pediatric Therapy Services, Inc., has been known to inducements to keep their young clients motivated and engaged while attending therapeutic service. Play is a child’s main way of learning, so fun and games is essential in occupational therapy practices that treat children. Sometimes having a live animal can be more effective in catching children’s interests