Comfort positions are recognized by child life professionals as an effective, low cost, and quick intervention for reducing stress during medical interventions for children and teens (Stephen, 1999). Despite research demonstrating these benefits, comfort positions can be misunderstood and underutilized by the medical community. Attendees will gain insight into how to implement comfort positioning into various medical settings.

Children impacted by death will likely experience intense grief and mourning. Child life specialists are able to assist children, families, and the community throughout the bereavement process. A review of death disclosure strategies, and tools to extend child life services in bereavement support in the pediatric hospital, adult hospital, and the school setting.

Stir your imagination and be inspired. Come listen and learn during these three, 30-minute presentations.

The amount of limited English proficient (LEP) patients and families present in hospitals continues to grow. In this presentation, attendees will learn about the role and characteristics of a medical interpreter and how to enhance meaningful interactions with LEP children and caregivers.

DOMAIN: Intervention; 1.5 PDU's - Engaging in difficult conversations is not solely about having the “right” words; it’s about how compassion, perspective, and words work together to create meaningful conversations.

This presentation discusses strategies for supporting families that utilize competing coping efforts in response to stressors. Whether attempting to cope with new diagnoses or end-of-life, stress is a shared experience. With limited space and time to process at an individual level, patients and families may respond with clashing coping behaviors. This session explores the specialist’s role in supporting multiple coping strategies, and provides an effective tool for navigating these experiences.

This presentation will examine a multidisciplinary approach to caring for families being discharged from hospital post stillbirth, miscarriage, infant or child death, apprehension by child protective services, or adoption. Pediatric child life specialist and social worker have developed a new concept in how to collaboratively care for and support these families. This idea and its inception will be explored while also touching on what to be mindful of while working with this patient population.

​Child life specialists may be challenged in planning therapeutic interventions to adequately meet the developmental needs of adolescent patients. Adolescent patient’s have a need for social comparison information and identity formation. This workshop will provide practical ideas for incorporating bibliotherapy and narrative medicine into practice to bridge this gap.

This webinar will discuss tactics and virtual programming ideas created by the entire team at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital – Mission Bay. We will share our ideas, what worked and didn’t work in regards to virtual programming and socialization opportunities for patients and families during COVID 19. Suggested Domain: Intervention

​This presentation will outline research conducted from analyzing 3.8 million online interactions about illness from pediatric patients. SUGGESTED DOMAIN: Intervention