A Prescription for Play: A Child Life Specialist’s Role in Implementing Play-based Therapeutic Group Programming for Behavioral Health Patients - LIGHTNING PASS 2025

Cantley Roberts is a Certified Child Life Specialist who works with the behavioral health population at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She has been working with the behavioral health population for 4 years and primarily serves patients awaiting inpatient psychiatric treatment in the Emergency Department. She serves on various committees focused on improving staff confidence to support behavioral health patients and helped author the institution’s pathway for providing care to behavioral health patients in the emergency department. Cantley’s professional passions include preparing patients for transfer to an inpatient psychiatric facility, facilitating goal-oriented therapeutic programming, and providing education to patients on coping skills and de-escalation techniques. When she’s not at work, Cantley enjoys reading, cooking, and spending time at the beach.

Anna has been a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Therapist and Certified Child Life Specialist for 5 years. Some of her past experiences working with children include assistant teaching students in a pre-school and serving as therapeutic support staff in an elementary school. Currently, she is working full time as a Child Life Specialist and Recreational Therapist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) for the past three years and per diem at Shriners Hospital for Children (SHC) for the past five years. At Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Anna works with behavioral health patients admitted to the Adolescent Medicine Unit and Medical Behavioral Unit where she provides both child life and recreational therapy interventions to these patients. She serves on various committees and taskforces throughout the hospital as a Behavioral Health Committee member, Well-Being Champion and Committee member and Patient Safety Advisory Council member to help spread awareness to others on safely working with and supporting behavioral health patients during their hospitalization. When Anna is not at work, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, reading, shopping, doing puzzles and cooking.

Ashley has been a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist for 5 years and a Certified Child Life Specialist for 4 years. Her experiences include previously working in an independent living memory care unit and she is currently am employed at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) for the past four years. Ashley started her career working on the Medical Behavior Unit for two years working with behavioral health patients who present with a medical complexity. Ashley currently resides on the Rehabilitation Unit for the past year and a half. Ashley provides a variety of interventions to a diverse population of patients, a few examples being traumatic brain injuries, disorders of consciousness, oncologic, and orthopedic injuries. Some examples of these interventions include group programming, individual play sessions; both therapeutic and normalizing, and diagnosis education.