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My Favorite Child Life Memory...
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Thu, 2/02/2012 9:30 AM Editor's Note: During a recent staff discussion, we realized that each of had a favorite "child life" memory. This led us to ask various staff members to share one of their favorite child life memories. Our first in the series is written by Lauren McCann, who's discussing her decision to go into the field. By Lauren McCann One of my favorite child life moments goes all the way back to college when I learned about this amazing career. It was the second semester of my sophomore year and I still had not declared a major. I was interested in the medical field, but didn’t feel the calling to be a One day, I overheard (or eavesdropped) the conversation of a senior sorority sister talking about her major. It was all about working with children to help them overcome their fears/anxieties while in the hospital. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! I quickly jumped into the conversation and asked her as many questions as she could stand. When the conversation was over, I knew I had found my calling. The very next morning, I went to my university’s registrar’s office and declared my major, Human Development and Family Studies with a focus in Child Life. I guess this is one of my favorite moments because this is when Child Life entered my life. After that moment, every educational and career decision I made was all about how I could be the best Child Life Specialist I could be. Child Life is my heart and I am so thankful for how nosy I was that day and how it changed my life! Happy (belated) birthday, More Than Medicine
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Thu, 1/12/2012 9:32 AM by Thomas Hobson
Now, how will we be celebrating our second (and belated) birthday? I imagine it’ll be just like a normal two-year-old’s birthday. We’ll invite family and friends over and cook out. In the end, we’ll probably get tired and need to take a nap or else have a meltdown. Oh, and if we were actually turning two, our developmental milestones would look like this:
Yep, that sounds about right for us… Thank you to all of our readers for sticking with us throughout our two years. We've had a lot of growth, and really hit our stride. We’re looking forward to everything that this next year will bring for More Than Medicine. The Creative Arts Room
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Thu, 1/05/2012 9:30 AM by Stephanie Kellough
The Creative Arts Room is also utilized by our Child Life Specialists. They use this room for all sorts of special projects. Whether they need to make a birthday banner to help a child celebrate their birthday in the hospital or help a child with their fears of medical equipment by using medical supplies as an art medium. Child Life Specialists also spend time in this room working on projects that are unique to their patient population. Our Creative Arts Room as well as our other programmatic areas, is considered a “safe area”. By being deemed a “safe area”, no medical procedures, medical speech, or medical exams can take place in this room. Since our patients and families have to deal with these occurrences throughout the day, we want to provide a place for them to leave those cares at the door. If you would like to donate any art items to our Creative Arts Room, please schedule a donation drop-off by calling 901-287-6021. We accept all new and unused art supplies, such as crayons, art kits, coloring pencils, scissors, glue, etc. The 2011 Child Life Awards
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Thu, 9/29/2011 9:48 AM by Thomas Hobson Yesterday was an exciting and entertaining day in child life at Le Bonheur. We held the 4th Annual Child Life Awards, which is an opportunity to celebrate all of the great things that go on within the department. I may be biased on this, but it’s definitely the hospital event of the year.
The awards are filled with staff generated, fun awards. It's a wonderful opportunity to celebrate our successes, and laugh a little at ourselves. As I always say, we take the work we do seriously, but we don't take ourselves seriously. This year include a "dramatic" reading of poetry and a look back at the past twelve months. Two years ago we introduced a new element to the Child Life Awards, the Child Life Associate of the Year. This is an award given to a child life staff member that has been nominated from someone else within the department. The winner is a person that over the past year has exemplified the mission and work of Child Life Services. I have the privilege of receiving the nominations, and delivering them to the selection committee. As was the case last year, it was definitely a tough decision. However, the committee did make a selection. I am please to congratulate Stephanie Kellough as the 2011 Child Life Associate of the Year. Stephanie serves as a child life assistant, and has been an important member of that team for quite some time. She works with our special events, donations, and has been a champion of keeping the team positive and supported. Stephanie's is quick with a joke and to lend a much needed hand, both are always at the perfect time. We couldn't be prouder of her! It Takes a Village
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Wed, 9/14/2011 1:19 PM
by Lauren McCann & Jennifer Taylor Today the city of Memphis and the entire country were made aware of amazing medical services Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital provided to two very special little boys. Jacob and Joshua Spates, conjoined twins born in January 2011, were successfully separated on Aug. 29 due to the Child Life began providing emotional support and sibling preparation to the mother while she was pregnant with the boys. At the Maternal Fetal Center, Child Life serves as a member of the health care team to provide patient- and family-centered care to not only the mother, but the entire family. Since she has other children, Child Life worked with the mother to prepare her and her other children for the birth of their unique siblings. Dolls were sewn together to give the other children a visual understanding of how the twins would look after birth. Following the boys’ exceptional birth, Child Life then began providing services in Le Bonheur’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Child Life focused on promoting normalcy by creating a stimulating and child-friendly environment within their hospital room. This included decorating their room to create a homelike ambiance. During the time they were joined as one, Child Life also provided visual and auditory stimulation to the boys, engaged them in developmentally appropriate activities to aid in encouraging their developmental milestones, and provided overall comfort to both the boys and their mother. Although the boys were joined as one, they were always seen as two separate individuals by our staff. This is especially true in that when Child Life would work with them, one might have been awake while the other slept, making it a challenge to avoid waking the other. When it came time for the separation surgery, Child Life was also there to provide ongoing emotional support to the mother. While the mother was very happy to know her boys would soon be separated, this emotional time was also full of stress and anxiety. Child Life was there to provide active listening, support, and a calming environment during the 13-hour surgery. Today, as the boys heals from their separation surgery and begin to make developmental strides as individuals, Child Life continues to provide developmentally appropriate activities and engage the boys in their new found environment as two boys, no longer conjoined as one. Child Life is honored to be a member of the multi-disciplinary team at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital and we are privileged to have assisted in the extraordinary event. If you would like more information about this amazing story, please visit www.lebonheur.org/twins Spotlight: The Family Group
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Tue, 5/17/2011 9:30 AM
by Jamie Droke On April 1 of this year, the psychosocial team in the intensive care unit began a weekly family group for family members of patients in the intensive care unit. The social worker, chaplain and I (child life specialist) rotate facilitating the group meeting that has been well attended each week. We began the group after noticing the spontaneous, organic friendships that were being generated in the family waiting room. In the ICU, we see a wide variety of diagnoses, ages, length of stays, et cetera. However, the one thing that all families in the ICU have in common is that they are facing the stress of having a child in need of critical care. Most of the staff in the ICU will fortunately never experience this stress, but all of the parents there do experience at least for a short amount of time. When the person providing support is actually going through the same thing you are, you often feel better supported and this is why these relationships between families is so crucial. Our group is always casual, laid-back and enjoyed by the families who attend. The facilitators lay down some ground rules (everyone deserves respect, everything shared is confidential) and then present a topic related to having a child in the ICU. Some of the topics we have talked about so far include “What ties us together,” “My upside down life,” “Coping with the need to cope,” and “Communication challenges in the ICU.” Of course, we do not limit the conversation to these topics and often families will direct the topic of conversation to something only remotely related to the planned topic. The hour meeting is not a time for us to teach families or for families to dwell on complaints. The important piece is that families feel met in the place they are and feel supported by other families facing similar situations. I would love to hear from some of you who may have experienced an ICU admission or even an extended inpatient stay. What would you find helpful in a family group like ours and what are some topics you would like to talk about? The family group is, after all, about the families, and we want the families to be able to direct where our group goes from here. Patient Spotlight: Dre
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Mon, 4/11/2011 9:30 AM Editor's Note: There are many wonderful patients and families that come through the doors at Le Bonheur Children's. In the Patient Spotlight series, our hope is to share some of their stories and get to hear from the patients themselves. By Cassie Gorman
CL Spotlight: Teachers, Assistants, & Leaders
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Thu, 3/24/2011 9:30 AM Editor's Note: Every March is Child Life Month, which is a wonderful spotlight for awareness on the field of Child Life. As part of our celebration, More Than Medicine will "spotlight" child life specialists from various areas of Le Bonheur Children's. Today's post takes a look at our some of the others that make Child Life Services run, our school teachers, child life assistants, and leadership. By Jamie Droke
At Le Bonheur, we have two school teachers who are available to meet the educational needs of our patients and families. When a child is admitted, these two teachers communicate with the school that the child attends, speaks with teachers, counselors, and anyone else involved to determine what work needs to be done while the child is in the hospital. Once this work is received, teachers are available to help patients with their assignments so they do not fall behind while they are here. In addition, these teachers hold daily classroom sessions in our two classrooms for any patients who are able to attend.
As you have read over the past four weeks, the child life department influences nearly every area of Le Bonheur. We might have our different roles or areas of expertise, but we all work together to accomplish one common goal: to meet the needs of patients and their families during their stay at Le Bonheur. CL Service Spotlight: Family Support
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Tue, 3/22/2011 9:30 AM Editor's Note: Every March is Child Life Month, which is a wonderful spotlight for awareness on the field of Child Life. As part of our celebration, More Than Medicine will "spotlight" child life specialists from various areas of Le Bonheur Children's. Today's post spotlights a child life service that focuses on helping the entire family. by Jamie Droke For the final full week of March which is National Child Life Month I want to spotlight a service that child life specialists provide that is especially near and dear to my heart. Probably the service I spend most of my day providing is today’s spotlight: Family Support. Since I work in the Intensive Care Unit, many of my children are too ill to engage in play or distraction, but because of the severity of their illnesses or injuries, their parents and other family members often need extra support. Family support is not something that is only provided in the critical care areas, though. Specialists all over the hospital provide family support on a daily basis in several different ways. For today I will highlight three different ways that we work to support families.
The second area of family support is support we provide to certain family members: sibling support. In order to help siblings cope with the patient’s hospitalization, a Child Life Specialist provides age appropriate preparation for siblings to come visit the hospital. Preparation generally includes pictures and education about the child’s illness, medical equipment and changes in appearance. This preparation is especially crucial in our critical care areas where physicians utilize unfamiliar and potentially scary medical equipment in caring for a patient. Without this preparation, siblings or other young family members could easily be overwhelmed and afraid. In situations when a patient receives a new diagnosis, Child Life Specialists explain the diagnosis to siblings in a way they can understand. If a patient is very critically ill and not able to recover from an illness or injury, Child Life Specialists provide bereavement support to families during a death, or pending death, of a loved one. Child Life can provide the family with opportunities for making memories, resources on coping with death, and how to explain death to siblings. Child Life Specialists are often present throughout this time to offer additional emotional to parents, siblings, and other family members. These three areas are the general areas where family support is provided. Of course, in every way, we strive to provide patient AND family centered care to all of our patients and families. And now a question for all of you reading out there…if you have ever had a loved one in the hospital, was there anything that anyone did, or anything you wish someone would have done that would have been helpful and supportive to you? We are always looking for ways to better support our families! Child Life Service Spotlight: Preparation
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Thu, 3/17/2011 9:30 AM Editor's Note: Every March is Child Life Month, which is a wonderful spotlight for awareness on the field of Child Life. As part of our celebration, More Than Medicine will "spotlight" child life specialists from various areas of Le Bonheur Children's. Today's post spotlights a child life service that helps to take the fear out of being at the hospital. by Jamie Droke In continuing our spotlights during child life month, today we will highlight a service that nearly every specialist has provided in nearly every area: preparation! This week we have been working to educate staff and families in the hospital about our role in preparing children for procedures and we thought we would let you in on the fun! Preparation for procedures allows the patient and their family the opportunity to learn about the procedure in a way that is non-threatening. The information is presented in child friendly terms to help ease fears and misconceptions, as well as promote coping. Some parents are hesitant to prepare children for upcoming procedures, but for children, the fear of the unknown is often much worse than the reality. When we can dispel those fears by giving them accurate, honest, and age appropriate information about a procedure, it gives the child an opportunity to cope. Sometimes the worst part of a procedure is being held down and if a child is prepared and able to hold still, the traumatic feeling of being held down might not even have to happen. Preparations that include sensory descriptions of what the child will experience are most effective. For example, “the first step is that the nurse will clean your arm with cold, wet soap three times.” When a child is expecting something to be cold and wet, it is much less scary when someone uses a cold, wet alcohol wipe to clean their arm. Here are the Top 10 reasons that preparation for procedures is important.
As you can see, preparation is a large part of what we do each day as child life specialists. We prepare children for what they will see, hear, smell, and feel. We prepare parents for what to expect during a procedure or after their child returns from a procedure. When children or parents believe some piece of information is being withheld from them, it causes an increase in anxiety and stress. And one of our biggest goals is to reduce stress and anxiety for patients and families in the hospital. Preparation is just one way we do that! Specialist Spotlight: Critical Care
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Tue, 3/15/2011 9:30 AM Editor's Note: Every March is Child Life Month, which is a wonderful spotlight for awareness on the field of Child Life. As part of our celebration, More Than Medicine will "spotlight" child life specialists from various areas of Le Bonheur Children's. Today's post takes a look at our wonderful critical care child life specialist. By Jamie Droke
Child Life Specialists cover in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, the Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit, and the Intermediate Care Unit. These specialists provide support to the families of our most critical patients. They utilize family support techniques to help families implement effective coping strategies and better understand the medical plan of care. Particularly in the NICU and IMCU, our patients can have pretty long hospital stays. In these areas, specialists provide developmental stimulation in order to help patients continue to grow and develop while in the hospital. Another aspect of critical care is sibling support. Specialists in these areas prepare siblings to visit patients so that siblings are not overwhelmed by the medical equipment and monitors. These specialists can also provide memory-making opportunities for families. These specialists spend a lot of their time providing:
As you can see, inpatient specialists, outpatient specialists, and critical care specialists share many of the same responsibilities. However, child life has a slightly different emphasis in each of the various areas. The best news is that if you have to visit any of these four areas, you are likely to encounter someone from our team. For our last full week of Child Life Month, we will look at the remainder of the child life department, including Child Life Assistants, our Leadership Team, and Hospital School Teachers. In the meantime, Happy Child Life Month!!! Child Life Service Spotlight: Distraction
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Wed, 3/09/2011 9:30 AM Editor's Note: Every March is Child Life Month, which is a wonderful spotlight for awareness on the field of Child Life. As part of our celebration, More Than Medicine will "spotlight" child life specialists from various areas of Le Bonheur Children's. Today's post spotlights an important child life service, distraction. by Jamie Droke
Distraction, though, is not limited to distraction during procedures. We can often use distraction (which looks more like camouflage) to encourage a child to be compliant with a physician’s order. For example, a patient who we need to take deep breaths is much more likely to do so if those breaths are taken in order to blow bubbles or make a pinwheel spin. In the same way, a child who needs to get out of bed and walk is much more likely to get up if there is something fun and enticing at the end of their walk. Walking to the playroom is much more likely to happen than just walking down the hall and back. It makes sense that these strategies would work. If the brain is given something else to focus on, the pain or fear becomes less prominent. Of course the pain and fear might still be there, but the brain is now unable to focus as much energy on these negative feelings because it is busy focusing on the fun, exciting result of doing whatever we need the child to do. The most important thing is that the activity or reward is age appropriate. Distraction during procedures works the same way. If a child has a favorite book, bubbles, some light-up toy, or even just distracting conversation to focus on, they will have less brain energy to focus on the pain. And if the distraction is especially engaging, they will return to the fun distracting activity as soon as the poke is over and will be better able to hold still for the completion of the procedure. A quick disclaimer: if children are watchers, attempting to distract them or shield their eyes during procedures will cause them to become more distressed. For these children it is best to talk them through each step of the procedure and remind them of their only job: to hold still. Specialist Spotlight: Inpatient
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Wed, 3/02/2011 9:30 AM Editor's Note: Every March is Child Life Month, which is a wonderful spotlight for awareness on the field of Child Life. As part of our celebration, More Than Medicine will "spotlight" child life specialists from various areas of Le Bonheur Children's. Today's post marks our first with a look at our wonderful inpatient child life specialist. By Jamie Droke
Each of our inpatient units is covered each weekday by a Certified Child Life Specialist. These specialists work to promote coping and reduce stress for patients and their families throughout hospital admissions. In addition, child life specialists recognize the need for normal activities and peer interactions while in the hospital and facilitate opportunities for normalization and socialization. These specialists spend a lot of their time providing
Since our units are organized by diagnosis and child life specialists cover by unit, each specialist has a few diagnoses in which they are extremely well versed. For example, the specialist who covers the neurology floor (7th) is our expert on brain tumors, but not on asthma. And the specialist who covers the respiratory floor (11th) is our expert on asthma, but not on brain tumors. Each specialist has a list of several procedures or diagnoses they spend a lot of time dealing with, but all of the inpatient specialists spend a lot of their time providing things on the list above. As you will see in the weeks to come, this list is slightly different than the list for outpatient specialists or specialists in critical care. In the meantime, Happy Child Life Month!!! Volunteering in Child Life
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Fri, 2/25/2011 9:40 AM by Jenny Shelton
We have a Creative Arts Room on the 9th floor that allows patients and their families the opportunity to get out of their rooms to participate in creative activities for several hours in the afternoon. There is a Teen Room on the 11th floor that allows pre-teen and teenage patients to get out of their rooms to socialize with other patients their own age and engage in activities that would be normal for them outside of the hospital environment. We also, have two school classrooms on the 10th and 12th floors that are fully functioning classrooms with credited teachers that offer educational services throughout the week for patients and their family members. Child Life is currently seeking individuals from the community that are interested in volunteering in the hospital with patients and their families in the Creative Arts, School Classroom, or Teen Room. We have a variety of days and times available throughout the week. If you are someone you know would like to volunteer at Le Bonheur please contact Volunteer Services or visit the website at: www.lebonheur.org/beavolunteer
It's almost our birthday!
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Wed, 12/15/2010 10:50 AM by Thomas Hobson
Now, how will we be celebrating our first birthday? I imagine it’ll be just like a normal “soon to be” one year old’s birthday. We’ll invite family and friends over and cook out. In the end, we’ll probably cover our faces in cake, which we’ll eat by hand. Oh, and if we were actually turning one, our developmental milestones would look like this:
Yep, that sounds about right for us… Thank you to all of our readers for sticking with us throughout our first year. We’ve had a lot of growth, and have found our voice. We've won an award and added writers (which I'm pretty sure is why we won the award). It's been a busy year, and I can’t wait to see what happens next. In honor of our first birthday, we thought we would share some of our favorite posts from the past year. |
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nurse and could not imagine going to school for as long as it took to be a doctor. I also definitely wanted to work with children, but knew in my heart that I did not have the patience to be a teacher. So I basically spent the first year and a half of college taking the required courses and also taking classes the peaked my interest, such as child development and adolescent psychology.
On December 18, 2011, we celebrated the blog’s second birthday. It’s hard to believe, but More Than Medicine is has turned two years old. On December 18, 2009, this blog launched quietly, and has been churning along ever since. As I write this, it is our 324th post and we’re still going strong. If there’s a topic you’d like to see us cover over the next year, leave us a comment and we’ll work it in.
The Creative Arts Room is a space where our patients and families can leave their worries at the door and be as creative as they want. Our Creative Arts Room is located on the 9th floor and is open to all patients and their family members each and every day. Each day a Child Life Activity Coordinator or Volunteer lead the patients and families in a creative activity. These activities can range anywhere from painting an x-ray to building a birdhouse to making a get well banner for their loved ones. 
Now, as some of you may know, Child Life Month is in March. So, why do we hold the Child Life Awards in the summer? The answer is fairly simple. We spend the entirety of Child Life Month educating and advocating and end up doing more work, simply by raising awareness. By holding the awards at a different time, we get to enjoy the event without being exhausted. (Well, at least not exhausted from Child Life Month…)
dedicated care of hundreds of people at Le Bonheur. Among the team members who cared for the boys and their family were the child life specialists who provided services prior to their birth and following their delivery.
What do volcanoes, Christmas in New York, and meatballs have in common? 11-year old Andrea Ruth, or "Dre", as her fan club at Le Bonheur affectionately calls her. Dre has been at Le Bonheur for the past 44 days. It has been such a joy to get to know Dre that I thought you would like to meet her too. 
In honor of National Child Life Month (March), we are continuing to explore the many different areas of the hospital our department covers. For the last three weeks, you have read about the child life specialists who cover in inpatient, outpatient, and critical care areas, but there are a few members of our team that we have not yet covered. These three groups are extremely important to our department and the way it operates. These groups are our hospital school teachers, our child life assistants, and our leadership team.
Child Life Assistants work in all areas of the hospital focusing on normalization activities for patients and their family members. These assistants help organize our special events such as monthly parties, arts and craft events, and performances from various community groups. They also staff our daily creative arts and teen room sessions so that patients and their families can get out of their room and participate in something fun. These assistants also work with volunteers to provide additional opportunities for our patients and families.
Our leadership team is composed of our director, Thomas Hobson, and our two managers, Lauren McCann and Jenny Shelton (you have likely read blog posts by all three of these fabulous leaders). From maintaining the daily schedule to developing the vision of the Child Life program, the leadership team is responsible for the overall success of the department. The team also works with the leadership of other departments throughout Le Bonheur to ensure Child Life meets the needs of all patients, families, and staff.
Child Life provides emotional support for parents, siblings and extended family members while they have a loved one in the hospital. Sometimes having a child in the hospital is harder than being in the hospital yourself. We recognize that sometimes parents or family members just need someone to listen to their concerns and validate their feelings. Child Life Specialists aim to help family members feel more comfortable and increase their understanding of the hospital environment. We also acknowledge that when we are under intense stress or have missed hours upon hours of sleep we are unable to process information as effectively as usual. Specialists work with families to communicate important medical information about their child in a way they can understand and make appropriate decisions. 
In honor of National Child Life Month (March), we are continuing to explore the many different areas of the hospital our department covers. As I mentioned last week, child life looks very different depending on the area in which you cover. This week, we will highlight yet another area where the services we provide are slightly different than those we offer in our inpatient or outpatient areas. Today I want to tell you a little about our critical care specialists.
One of the services that child life specialists provide is distraction for children during procedures. Distraction is not rocket-science and parents are fully equipped (maybe better than we are) to distract their child during procedures. Research has indicated that children cope better with painful procedures when they are distracted and that is the reason we do what we do. 
In honor of National Child Life Month (March), we are taking the opportunity to remind everyone of the many different areas of the hospital our department covers. For anyone who has ever had an encounter with someone from our team, you might not be aware that we cover in so many different areas. In fact, it is probably true that some staff members at Le Bonheur are unable to name all of the different areas where we work. And that is okay, because the important thing is that each specialist is known by the staff in that area and is well integrated as a member of the team. However, it is also helpful and good to know that we cover so many different areas. And the truth of the matter is, child life looks very different depending on the area in which you cover. So for the month of March, we will look at each different type of area we cover, starting today with the inpatient specialists.
Here at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital we greatly value our volunteers. The Child Life Department utilizes volunteers to help keep our program areas running while child life specialists are providing direct patient care. We have several program areas in the new hospital that we consistently use volunteers throughout the week to keep them open and available to patients/families. 
It’s to believe, but More Than Medicine is getting ready to turn one year old. On December 18, 2009, this blog launched quietly, and has been churning along ever since. As I write this, it is our 177th post, and I know that we’ll at least have 178 before our birthday. (For those of your keeping score at home, that averages out to almost 3.5 posts per week.)
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Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center is a leading children's hospital in the Mid South, providing pediatric care to children from 95 counties in six states.
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