USA Health Children’s & Women’s Hospital recognizes Child Life Month

By Michelle Ryan
mryan@health.southalabama.edu

Child life specialists may be most closely associated with toys, but if there’s one thing the team at USA Health Children’s & Women’s Hospital wants you to know, it’s that the job is anything but all fun and games.

Considered to be emotional first responders, child life specialists provide a crucial, but often misunderstood, role in the healthcare environment.

“We’re the people who play games,” said Kimberly Thompson-Yates, M.Ed., program coordinator for the Mapp Child and Family Life Program, of the most common misconception. “Often, the therapeutic components of what we do are not always seen by even our peers and our coworkers.”

A 1989 study published in Child Health Care, a journal of the Association for the Care of Children’s Health, suggested that therapeutic play can be misconstrued by other healthcare professionals as mere entertainment.

“It’s play with a purpose,” Thompson-Yates said. “The misconception is we’re just here to help the children have a good time, which we are. We’re here to make the hospital more fun. However, we do serve a therapeutic role that serves a bigger purpose.”

The Association for Child Life Professionals designates March as Child Life Month to promote understanding and appreciation of the invaluable contributions of child life specialists, such as age-appropriate procedural education and support, coping skills, normalization of the hospital experience, advocacy and play therapy.

At Children’s & Women’s Hospital, child life services are an integral part of the healthcare team, according to Deborah Browning, M.S.N., R.N., C.E.N.P., interim administrator at Children’s & Women’s Hospital.

“On any given day, they may be helping a child with coping skills during a lab draw in the emergency department or preparing a child heading to the OR for a broken arm. They might also work with a family needing to make big decisions about plan of care for their child,” she said. “They are a great example of the family-centered care we strive to deliver at Children’s & Women’s. We are so grateful for our team!”

Get to know the child life team:

Beth Abston, CTRS, a certified therapeutic recreation specialist, has worked in child life at Children’s & Women’s Hospital for 10 years.

While working on her degree, Abston put in some required hours at the hospital and volunteered at Camp Rapahope as a counselor, then added stints at Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children and other special-needs camps to her resume before returning.

“This is my favorite,” she said.

As she held a teaching doll used to help children understand their upcoming procedure, she explained some of the important work her team does. But on the surface, she said, it may look different to others.

“Even with every toy we do hand out, there is a purpose. There’s a reason behind its selection,” Abston said. “Sometimes it’s just a prize, but in most cases we’re choosing it to help a child cope with their stay here with us.”

Despite the misconceptions and challenges that come with the job, Abston said the rewards are much greater.

“The hope is that we might be making a difference on the worst day of someone’s life - the day they’re told their child has cancer or, even worse, the day they realize their child is not going to survive,” she said. “What we do to comfort the family might make that day a little bit easier.”

Jennifer Bisaga, CCLS, transitioned from the pediatric dental field to Children’s & Women’s Hospital's child life team two years ago.

“To help my patients, I started looking at techniques to help relieve anxieties and comfort positions from the ACLP, which is our child life organization,” she said. “From there, I just researched the program and fell in love with it.”

As a result, Bisaga had difficulty narrowing down one thing or moment that captured how fulfilling her job is. Her first response to the question was, enthusiastically, “Everything!”

“You’re working with people who are very vulnerable and just being able to empower them and help them have that mastery of going through difficult things is so rewarding,” she said. “Being a comforting piece of the puzzle in a not-so-comforting environment.”

Bisaga did recall working with a child who had to be separated from his mother while in the emergency department. Though it would be considered a very traumatic experience for anyone, she said she was able to reassure him that he was safe and loved, and he adopted those words as a coping tool.

“When he did have a moment where he was crying again, and I went and checked on him, without me even prompting him he said, ‘I am safe. I am loved,’” she said, “and just kept repeating that to himself.”

Brenda Maddox, CCLS has spent her entire 25-year career with Children’s & Women’s Hospital as a child life therapist.

She started nursing school but instead opted for a role where she could provide more individualized support beyond the procedural scope of care. She credits a personal event that changed her direction.

“I was hospitalized as a 15-year-old, and I didn’t really have anyone there to explain what was going on,” she said, “so that impacted a lot of that path.”

The value of the child life program to the hospital is extensive, from procedural education, procedural support, advocacy and, yes, even fun. But for Maddox, it’s more fundamental.

“The fear of the unknown is the biggest fear that an adult, I believe, has. It’s a huge fear that I have. So take that and bring it down to a child’s level where everything is unknown to them,” she said.

“We want to make an impact immediately upon admission to hopefully keep them from being traumatized and be more empowered. If they have to leave and come back to the hospital, it will be a more positive experience as opposed to a negative one.”

If you combine everything child life specialists do, Thompson-Yates said, the value of the program’s impact extends beyond a single visit.

“I think the child life program in this hospital sets us apart in our community,” she said. “We hope that through our actions that children and their parents are not afraid to seek medical care.”

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 Child Life Program at Children’s & Women’s Hospital traces its roots to the late 1970s, when Cathy O’Keefe, a therapeutic recreation instructor at the University of South Alabama, worked to create a program in the pediatric unit at what was then USA Medical Center. Since then, hospital staff and school teachers have worked with hospitalized children, teens and their families to ensure that a child’s developmental, educational and emotional needs are met.

Together, team members also coordinate special events and services to help normalize the hospital environment, such as visits with Senior Bowl players, Mardi Gras parades, pet therapy and more.