Those in the child life field step into informal and formal leadership roles throughout their career, often facing many learning opportunities along the way. This presentation will discuss topics relevant to leadership, including opportunities for leadership growth at different career stages, challenges faced, and overcoming personal and professional obstacles.

This presentation will discuss findings from a narrative-based research study in which child life specialists shared stories of challenging and fulfilling work experiences. Presenters will discuss how insights from this research can be applied in the supervision and support of aspiring and emerging professionals .

An integrative workshop designed to support depth of practice with neurodivergent patients from assessment to documentation. Participants will review assessment tools, strengthen interpretation skills and utilize these enhanced skills to create targeted communication, sensory, and pedagogical interventions. Attendees will increase competence and confidence in accurately documenting their depth of practice.

The purpose of this session is to highlight the benefits of music therapy, child life, and animal-assisted interventions to encourage meaningful collaboration between child life specialists and the multidisciplinary team. This presentation will include a multi-sensory intervention to demonstrate efficacy of familiar modalities in layered support for patients.

How do we as Certified Child Life Specialists (CCLSs) support adolescents when there are complex systemic issues that are contributing to their violent behavior? This presentation will examine this issue while reviewing a case example. This presentation will also identify and describe the role of ethics in supporting these adolescents.

Join for an in depth look at an innovative initiative aimed at reducing barriers to entering the child life profession. Using an evidence based practice (EBP) approach, our team examined the challenges students face in accessing child life education/clinical training with partnership of a staffing crisis across all child life teams in North America post Covid 2020 pandemic. These findings guided the creation of the compensated Child Life Residency at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), a model designed to promote greater access, equity, and long term diversity within the child life workforce. In this session, we will explore the research process, key insights, and the programmatic changes that emerged as a result. Participants will view practical strategies for evaluating systemic barriers within their own institutions and learn how residency models can strengthen pathways into the profession.

The safe pathway is a process to decrease re-traumatization, increase coping, enhance cooperation, and decrease stress and anxiety of trauma patients. Through this, a patient specific plan is developed to reduce opportunities for continued trauma and better equip staff on way to assess for ongoing triggers in the hospital setting.

Attendees will learn strategies for collaborating with medical staff to improve pain and comfort measures. Presenters will share how they identified needs, engaged stakeholders, implemented policies, and evaluated outcomes. Key data, findings, and lessons learned will be discussed to support sustained improvements in pain management and patient comfort initiatives.

Explore how immersive Virtual Reality tools can be integrated effectively into a CCLS toolkit to reduce pain, anxiety and distress. This session offers clinical insights, technology selection rationale, practical implementation strategies, and child- and family-centered outcomes from frontline practice.

Child life specialists in Fetal Health Center (FHC) provide patient and family support from prenatal diagnosis throughout their Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) hospitalization. They provide sibling support, connection to resources, and facility dog interventions. They support mothers through transition from patient to caregiver, promoting resilience, normalization, and emotional safety.