Child Life Specialist Services & Family Psychosocial Success

Certified Child life specialists are experts in child development who promote effective coping through play, preparation, education and self-expression activities. 

Certified Child Life professionals are a hybrid of child development advocates and counselors who help children and their families navigate the tough waters of challenging life circumstances in hospitals and community settings.

A child life specialist’s primary job is to reduce stress in children and to help them understand any stressful life circumstances or procedures they may be undergoing. They also provide emotional support for families and siblings, take steps to encourage typical child development and educate the medical community about the negative long-term effects of stress and trauma on children.

Infants, children and youth confront a wide variety of stressful and potentially traumatic events that can impact their ability to cope. These experiences related to stress can lead to feelings of fear, confusion, loss of control and isolation that can inhibit their development and have negative effects on their physical and emotional health and well-being.

In both healthcare and community settings, Certified Child Life Specialists help infants, children, youth and families cope with the stress and uncertainty of acute and chronic illness, injury, trauma, disability, loss and bereavement. They provide evidence-based, developmentally and psychologically appropriate interventions including therapeutic play, preparation for procedures, and education to reduce fear, anxiety, and pain.

Certified Child Life Specialists are trained professionals with expertise in helping children and their families overcome life’s most challenging events. They are educated and clinically trained in the developmental impact of illness and injury and their role is to help improve patient and family care, satisfaction, and overall experience outcomes.

 Coping with big changes, illness, injury, stress, trauma and health related treatments is often challenging and stressful for children, youth, adolescents, and their families. Certified Child Life Specialists provide therapeutic play, preparation for procedure, and education that reduce fear, anxiety, pain, and suffering for patients and their families. Studies show these child life services result in cost savings, including reduced length of stay, decreased sedation needs, and improved family satisfaction and ratings of overall experience.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has endorsed the important role of the Certified Child Life Specialist, and U.S. News & World Report has recognized that expertise in child life is a vital variable in the success of pediatric care and a key quality indicator in hospital rankings. The  AAP policy statement, “Child Life Services,” was published in the January 2021 issue of Pediatrics.  

Mission: We, as child life professionals, strive to reduce the negative impact of stressful or traumatic life events and situations that affect the development, health and well-being of infants, children, youth and families. We embrace the value of age and developmentally appropriate play as a healing modality as we work to enhance the optimal growth and development of infants, children, youth adolescents and their families through assessment, intervention, prevention, advocacy, and education. 

Vision: The profession of child life will continue to meet the needs of infants, children, youth and families in times of stressful or traumatic life events and situations. The philosophy and practice of child life will be applicable to any health care setting and transferable to other community environments or situations in which the potential for pediatrics (ages 0-18) to cope, learn and master their positive development is placed at risk. The services provided by the child life profession will be holistic and will utilize applied child development and family systems theory. The objectives of such services will be to minimize the negative impact of situational disruptions while maintaining individual growth and development and family relationships. 

Child Life: Enhancing Pediatric Psychosocial Healthcare Outcomes World-Wide:

- Association of Child Life Professionals: www.childlife.org

- Canadian Association of Child Life Leaders:  Canadian Association of Child Life Leaders (CACLL) - Association Canadienne des Responsables de Services Éducatifs en Mileu Pédiatrique (ACRSEMP) 

 Home (childlife.org) 

 Canadian Association of Child Life Leaders (CACLL) - Association Canadienne des Responsables de Services Éducatifs en Mileu Pédiatrique (ACRSEMP) 

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