Child Life Flashcards
What is child life?
Promote effective coping through play, preparation, education, and self-expression
Provide emotional support
Encourage optimum development
Provide families and sibling with information, support, and guidance
Co-treat with other hospital and medical modalities
Music therapy, OT, PT, Nursing, etc.
Where do child life work?
Inpatient units such as general pediatric and PICU
Specialty areas like ER, surgical, NICU, etc.
Adult units
Outpatient facilities such as doctors’ offices, dental offices, hospice care centers, specialized medical camps, schools, court systems, etc.
Child life goals
Preparation
Procedure Support
Education
Normalization
Medical Play
Bereavement
Family-Centered Care
Child life prepares the child by doing what
Prepare children for procedures using child friendly language that they can understand
Use medical supplies and teaching tools to demonstrate what patients may see, smell, hear, taste, and feel.
Medikin Dolls
Develop a coping strategy
Holding mom’s hand, looking away from the needle, taking deep breaths, playing a game on the iPad, etc.
Child life helps with procedure support by
Reduce anxiety through implementing coping strategies
Provide distraction and support during medical procedures
Comfort positioning
Non-pharmacological pain management
Child life helps with education by
Developmentally appropriate education for new diagnosis, procedures, surgery, etc.
Making sure pediatric patients understand their diagnosis and why they have to undergo treatment to the best of their developmental ability.
Parent education/support
Sibling education/support
Medical Play
Provides opportunities for developmentally appropriate education
Allows children to express emotions such as fear and frustration
Helps to identify misconceptions
Opportunity to assess and prepare for procedures
Normalization
Identify effects of hospitalization, illness, injury, or stress on developmental milestones
Promote child & teen friendly environments
Provide opportunities for expressive activities and play with the goal of encouraging standard development
Normal routines
Special events and activities (teen town, timmy’s playroom, lindsey’s park and performance theater)
Bereavement with child life
Support patient and/or family through grief, mourning, and coping with loss
Sibling education and support
Legacy building
Heartbeat recordings, hand/foot/finger print art, developmentally appropriate books.
Additional roles of child life
Identify peer and social issues
School reintroduction
Transition periods
CCLS can assist teen patients through the transition process into adult medicine by helping them to communicate their needs, reservations, and expectations. (Cooley & Sagerman, 2011)
Educating nursing and other medical staff to provide developmentally and psychosocially appropriate care (Lawes et al., 2008)
Sit on hospital committees for bereavement, ethics, family-centered care, etc.
According to child life, Siblings present their own unique needs that can often go
overlooked or unnoticed as their developmental levels vary
