Child Life Specialist - Calgary, Canada - Alberta Health Services
Description
Your Opportunity:
The Alberta Children's Hospital (ACH) is a warm & vibrant workplace, with team members providing service to children & their families in inpatient units & ambulatory clinics. The Child Life Specialist, as part of the ACH site wide Child Life Service, ensures their clinical practice is patient/family centered, maximizes the child's physical and emotional health through activities and interventions that are evidence based, research informed and aligned with program and clinic services. The Child Life Specialist is responsible for assessment and interventions which support children and their families with coping and adjustment in the hospital setting across emergency, inpatient, and outpatient services. This individual will have the skills required to utilize knowledge of infant/child/adolescent development, the impact of hospitalization on children, pain management and coping techniques, and the principles of family centered care in interacting and intervening with pediatric patients. The Child Life Specialist works as part of an interdisciplinary team providing therapeutic interventions in response to referrals and within the context of regular program offerings. This position will provide primary support to outpatient clinic areas.
Description:
As a Child Life Specialist, you will plan, develop, implement, coordinate and evaluate developmental and normalization activities including therapeutic play programs in order to further the social, emotional, intellectual and physical growth of children and adolescents. You will assess, research, plan, implement and evaluate appropriate play and developmental activities/interventions for children and families (both individual and in group settings). You will provide therapeutic play programs designed to reduce stress, help clients cope with hospitalization, promote development and independence. You will help prepare children for diagnostic, medical and surgical procedures through hospital play, demonstrations and discussions and introduce coping strategies and techniques to assist children and families during procedures. You will also provide diversion experiences and facilitate special events.
Required Qualifications:Completion of bachelor's degree in Child Life, Education, Psychology or other related field.
Additional Required Qualifications: Preferred Qualifications:Medical Hypnosis training preferred, demonstrating ability to apply techniques of medical hypnosis with children/youth in a variety of clinical settings within the hospital.Motivational Interviewing training preferred.Grief and bereavement experience.Connect care trained.