The intent of this book is to highlight the ways that child life practice can be delivered in a variety of settings, and to provide readers with a starting point for exploring the endless opportunities open to child life specialists.

By Richard H. Thompson, Edgewood College, Madison, Wisconsin, and Gene Stanford, Children's Hospital, Buffalo, New York. With a Foreword by Jerriann Myers Wilson. Child life services include providing emotional support, structuring therapeutic play programs, psychologically preparing children for medical procedures, enhancing the hospital environment, and acting as the child's and parents' advocate. This book covers them all. It begins by describing the provision of these services in a typical case and by reviewing the relevant literature. The authors then discuss parents' needs and parent involvement, the hospital play program, and ways in which the hospital environment contributes to children's reactions. Equally thorough information is presented on the relationship of child life to other disciplines; supervision of volunteers, students and staff; and the development of a child life program. The text's balance of tools, techniques and guidelines makes it valuable not only to child life specialists, but also to nurses, occupational and recreational therapists, social workers, and other hospital personnel.

Child life is a profession that draws on the insights of history, sociology, anthropology and psychology to serve children and families in many critical stress points in their lives, but especially when they are ill, injured or disabled and encounter the hosts of caregivers and institutions that collaborate to make them well. Children and their families can become overwhelmed by the task of understanding and navigating the healthcare environment and continue to face challenges through their daily encounters. It is the job of child life professionals to provide care and guidance in these negotiations to serve as culture brokers, interpreters of the healthcare apparatus to family and child and the child to medical professionals. Despite the best efforts to provide quality, sensitive psychosocial care to children and their families, they remain vulnerable to lingering aftereffects. The goal of this revised edition is to help prepare child life specialists to deliver the highest level of care to children and families in the context of these changing realities. Each chapter has been substantially revised and two new chapters have been added. This book will be a valuable resource for not only child life specialists but also nurses, occupational and recreational therapists, social workers and other hospital personnel.

The Pips of Child Life: Early Play Programs in Hospitals

A hospital is preserved, afloat, after the Earth is flooded beneath seven miles of water. Inside, doctors and patients are left to remember the world they've lost and to imagine one to come. At the center, Jemma Claflin, a medical student, finds herself gifted with strange powers and a frightening destiny.

Anna's little sister Molly needs to go to the hospital for an operation.

In today’s evidence-based healthcare culture, child life specialists must demonstrate knowledge and skill not only in clinical care, but also in planning and evaluating the impact of their interventions—yet few resources exist to provide research skills and support for these practitioners. To adequately evaluate, improve, and innovate patient and family outcomes, it is essential that all providers understand the key inquiry pathways of research. Combining clinical examples and skills with candid advice from seasoned child life specialist researchers, this text scaffolds the concept of inquiry into feasible units of action. From identifying a clinical question to assembling a team, designing a project, collecting and analyzing data, and reporting on results, it guides students, professionals, and administrators in actively exploring and improving healthcare outcomes for patients and their families. Case examples from the authors’ own experiences as clinicians and researchers serve to demonstrate how to seamlessly translate clinical skills into those needed for success in research, ensuring that child life specialists remain active contributors to today’s research evidence on the needs of children and families during healthcare encounters.