Child Life Specialist - Children of Adult Patients

UT Southwestern Medical Center • Dallas, TX

3d • Hybrid

About The Position

The child life specialist will meet with well-children to answer questions and help them understand and manage their thoughts and feelings about their loved one's medical condition; utilizing bibliotherapy, appropriate verbiage and play that is based on meeting the needs of each child at their developmental level. The child life specialist will facilitate developmentally-appropriate anticipatory grief, grief and bereavement interventions with well-children; including preparation for an anticipated death, preparation for hospital visit to say their final goodbye to their loved one, support during transition to hospice, disclosure of expected, traumatic or unexpected death of their loved one, legacy and memory-making interventions, preparation for funeral or memorial services, and early grief processing support.

Requirements

• Bachelor's Degree in Child Life, Child Development, or a related field.
• (CCLS) CERTIFIED CHILD LIFE SPECIALST Upon Hire
• (BLS) BASIC LIFE SUPPORT course accredited by the American Heart Association (AHA) or the American Red Cross (ARC) is required Upon Hire

Nice To Haves

• 2 years of child life experience

Responsibilities

• Meets with involved adults to assess psychosocial needs of children and their families prior to implementation of therapeutic interventions.
• Understands and provides age-appropriate explanation of key aspects of disease, anticipatory grief, death, loss and bereavement to children, their parents or other involved adults
• Facilitates developmentally and situationally appropriate therapeutic interventions as an outlet for expression and normalcy, for children, grandchildren or other relation to a patient
• Initiates legacy and memory-making activities for the entire family; and advocates for allowing children the choice to say goodbye to their loved one, when developmentally appropriate
• Provides grief and bereavement interventions, both preceding and following the death of their important person, including age-appropriate preparation for funeral or memorial services, therapeutic interventions to assess children's understanding and coping, educational sessions for involved adults including explanations of developmentally appropriate/inappropriate coping and common behavioral concerns, as well as information and resources
• Educates medical center personnel serving adult patients experiencing serious/limiting conditions, about child life services and identifying families with anticipatory grief or grief that could benefit from child life services
• Performs other duties assigned.

Benefits

• PPO medical plan, available day one at no cost for full-time employee-only coverage
• 100%25 coverage for preventive healthcare-no copay
• Paid Time Off, available day one
• Retirement Programs through the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS)
• Paid Parental Leave Benefit
• Wellness programs
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Qualified Employer

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Entry Level
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees