Child Life Specialist I

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Department

Job Summary

A Certified Child Life Specialist (CCLS) is educated and clinically trained to use trauma-informed care and evidence-based developmentally and psychologically appropriate interventions to help children and families in their coping with illness, injury, trauma, disability, loss, and bereavement.

Child Life services are carried out in the unique SAFE Center setting through developmentally appropriate preparation for medical visits, facilitating medical play, normalizing the environment and creating a non-threatening space, clearing up possible misconceptions, facilitating therapeutic interventions, providing emotional safety, providing coping skills education, providing emotions education, and providing procedural support during: vitals, physical exams, hair follicle tests, colposcopies, blood work, occasionally skeletal surveys, and other various applicable procedures.

Essential Functions:

• Clinical Interventions: Develops a plan of care including interventions to address the needs of the child and family.
  * Family and sibling support: Utilizing a family-centered care approach to ensure the patient and family's individual, cultural, and social needs are met and to provide developmentally appropriate education and support to other children in the family to help them cope with a family member in the hospital.
  * Preparation and procedural support: Provides psychological preparation to children prior to undergoing medical procedures using expressive/medical play and other techniques to minimize stress or fears related to medical procedures.
  * Developmental/Therapeutic play: Uses normative and/or therapeutic play opportunities to encourage expression of feelings, process difficult events, explore positive coping skills, promote a sense of mastery and understanding of health care experiences, and to minimize stress associated with health care experiences.
  * Recognizes the developmental issues specifically related to healthcare experiences.
  * Diagnosis education: Utilizing developmentally appropriate language to explain a new diagnosis, injury, illness, or death.
  * Grief support: Providing memory making and legacy building items, developmentally appropriate education and resources for families, and facilitating bedside visits.
  (50%)
• Communication:
  * Monitors the child's reaction to hospitalization and provides the staff with timely information to supplement the health care services to the child.
  * Consults with family and staff to ensure clear communication and that the best interests of the patient are consistently met.
  * Provides education regarding the scope of child life services, the impact of health care on development, providing developmentally appropriate and emotionally safe medical care, and professional boundaries.
  (15%)
• Assessment:
  * Assessing the patient's current developmental level and providing interventions to enhance development.
  * Completing Psychosocial Risk Assessment in Pediatrics to evaluate and mitigate pediatric medical traumatic stress.
  (15%)
• Charting:
  * Documents services in patient chart.
  * Updates documentation as care plans change.
  (10%)
• Supply Management:
  * Selects and maintains program materials related to the Child Life role including but not limited to both developmental & normative toys/items, distraction items, and technology.
  (5%)
• Volunteers/Student Management:
  * Supervises volunteers and others participating in the Child Life Program.
  (5%)

Education:

• Bachelor's Degree required.

Work Experience:

• Two years of experience as a Certified Child Life Specialist in a hospital setting is highly preferred.

Licenses:

• CCLS-Certified Child Life Specialist - ACLP - Association of Child Life Professionals required, or eligible for CCLS (must be certified within 6 months of hire).
• BLS-Basic Life Support (BLS/CPR) - AHA - American Heart Association required.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:

• Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
• Child Life-Intermediate of knowledge and expertise of normal human growth and development. With intermediate skill set to provide clinical child life interventions to decrease medical trauma/stressors within a medical setting.
• Communicating - Communicating effectively orally and in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience, express or exchange ideas by verbal communications.
• Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
• Customer Service -Familiarity with the principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Developing Objectives and Strategies - Establishing long-range objectives and specifying the strategies and actions to achieve them.
• Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships - Developing constructive and cooperative working relationships with others and maintaining them over time.
• Organizing, Planning, and Prioritizing Work - Developing specific goals and plans to prioritize, organize, and accomplish your work.
• Problem solving - Entry level ability to systematically analyze problems, draw relevant conclusions and devise appropriate courses of action.
• Psychosocial Support - Entry level skills in the ability to assess the psychosocial needs for children and their families and implement appropriate interventions to mitigate psychological trauma and provide emotional safety.
• Technology - Familiarity with technology platforms, for example: Apple Products (ipad) & the Microsoft Office Suite (Excel, Word, PowerPoint)
• Thinking Creatively - Developing, designing, or creating new applications, ideas, relationships, systems, or products, including artistic contributions.
• Time Management - Managing one's own time.

****This position is located at the Denver SAFE Center, 405 S. Platte River Drive
Denver, CO 80223****

Shift

Work Type

Salary

Benefits

• Outstanding benefits including up to 27 paid days off per year, immediate retirement plan employer contribution up to 9.5%, and generous medical plans

• Free RTD EcoPass (public transportation)

• On-site employee fitness center and wellness classes

• Childcare discount programs & exclusive perks on large brands, travel, and more

• Tuition reimbursement & assistance

• Education & development opportunities including career pathways and coaching

• Professional clinical advancement program & shared governance

• Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) eligible employer+ free student loan coaching and assistance navigating the PSLF program

• National Health Service Corps (NHCS) and Colorado Health Service Corps (CHSC) eligible employer

Our Values

• Respect

• Belonging

• Accountability

• Transparency

All job applicants for safety-sensitive positions must pass a pre-employment drug test, once a conditional offer of employment has been made.

Denver Health is an integrated, high-quality academic health care system considered a model for the nation that includes a Level I Trauma Center, a 555-bed acute care medical center, Denver's 911 emergency medical response system, 10 family health centers, 19 school-based health centers, Rocky Mountain Poison & Drug Safety, a Public Health Institute, an HMO and The Denver Health Foundation.

As Colorado's primary, and essential, safety-net institution, Denver Health is a mission-driven organization that has provided billions in uncompensated care for the uninsured. Denver Health is viewed as an Anchor Institution for the community, focusing on hiring and purchasing locally as applicable, serving as a pillar for community needs, and caring for more than 185,000 individuals and 67,000 children a year.

Located near downtown Denver, Denver Health is just minutes away from many of the cultural and recreational activities Denver has to offer.

We strongly support diversity in the workforce and Denver Health is an equal opportunity employer (EOE).

Denver Health values the unique ideas, talents and contributions reflective of the needs of our community. For more about our commitment to diversity visit: https://www.denverhealth.org/for-professionals/careers/diversity-and-inclusion

Applicants will be considered until the position is filled.