Committees & Working Groups

Liaison: Barbara Romito, MA, CCLS

Mission and Goals: The role of the ACLP Liaison to the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Health Care is to:

• Represent ACLP in all proceedings of the Committee, including facilitating the ongoing review, update, and publication of the “Child Life Services” AAP policy statement
• Solicit, organize, summarize, and submit comments from ACLP leadership on other AAP policy statements that address child life services or other hospital services of direct relevance to child life

Chair: Melissa Racioppa, CCLS
Chair-Elect: Charity Vasquez, CCLS
Board Liaison: Sarah, Patterson, CCLS
Staff Liaison: Emily Eagon, Manager of Program Standards

Committee Charge: 

The charge of the Academic Review Committee (ARC) is to utilize the program standards and recommendations to manage undergraduate and graduate program endorsement. Responsibilities include:

• In partnership with ACLP staff, select and orient academic endorsement reviewers
• Ensure completion of review assignments in an accurate and timely manner
• Determine policies and procedures and manage processes regarding endorsement eligibility, application review and approvals, maintenance, renewals, and appeals
• Document endorsement policies, procedures, and decisions

Furthermore, the committee is responsible for enforcing the standards outlined by endorsement for the protection of both students and the credibility of the child life profession. We also work to promote endorsement visibility.

Chair: Deanna Bay, CCLS
Chair-Elect: Alexis Plumb, CCLS
Historians: Jerriann Wilson, CCLS, Lois Pearson, CCLS, Civita Brown, CCLS, & Claire White, CCLS
Board Liaison: Rene Assetta Guibeau, CCLS, CPST, CIMI
ACLP Staff Liaison: Baily Kasten, COO

Mission and Goals: To collect, maintain and promote the history of the organization and the child life profession.The tasks of the Archives Committee is to:

• Archives Management- collect, assess and catalog documents, photos and footage related to the history of the organization and the profession.
  • Collect and organize academic and clinical child life program histories, including historical documents, video clips and materials
  • Maintain an accurate listing of archived materials for easy member access
• Write blogs, Bulletin articles, develop Conference posters and social media messages to share valuable historical information and promote the use of archived materials in collaboration with Association of Child Life Professionals’ Office
• Support/develop special projects which highlight the history of the organization and the child life profession for Anniversary celebrations or as requested by the Board of Directors.
• Work with the Past-Presidents’ and historians’ Advisory Group as needed

Chair: Janis Smith, BS, CCLS
Chair-Elect: Anita Pumphrey, M.S., CCLS
Board Liaison: Janelle Mitchell, CCLS
ACLP Staff Advisor:  Mary Bean, Executive Assistant

Mission and Goals:  The mission of the Awards Committee is to:

• Present the ACLP Board of Directors with the recommended winner for the Distinguished Service Award and the Mary Barkey Clinical Excellence Award.
• Select recipients of the ACLP’s International Conference Scholarship.
• Select recipients of the Diversity Scholarship for internships three times a year.
• Select recipients of the Student and Professional Research Awards.

The Committee’s process includes the following tasks:

• Review and score applications/nominations for each of the above listed awards.
• Present the ACLP Board of Directors with the recommended Distinguished Service Award and Mary Barkey Clinical Excellence Award winners for approval.
• Select International Scholarship recipients.
• Maintain policies and procedures related to the awards process.
• Following the Board’s approval of recipient(s) for the Distinguished Service Award and Mary Barkey Clinical Excellence Award, work with the staff liaison to prepare a presentation of awards during the Annual Child Life Conference.

Executive Editor:  Kathleen McCue, LSW, CCLS
Associate Editor: Shannon Dier, CCLS
Managing Editor and Staff Liaison: Keri O'Keefe, ACLP Publications Manager
Board Liaison: Kim Stephens, CCLS

Mission and Goals: 

The mission of the Bulletin Committee is to produce the ACLP Bulletin and to develop the publication to become a valuable professional resource focusing on issues of interest to clinicians, administrators, educators, and students in the child life field.

The group fulfills this mission in several ways:

• produces quarterly issues of ACLP Bulletin in conjunction with ACLP staff
• solicits and develops ideas for ACLP Bulletin and features that discuss issues of interest to the child life community, with an emphasis on increasing the scholarship, innovation, and visibility of child life work
• acquires, reviews, and strengthens meaningful content for the publication
• partners with relevant ACLP committees and task forces to disseminate information about strategic planning and ongoing initiatives
• documents milestones and achievements within the child life community

Bulletin Subcommittees

Bulletin (Editors Only)

 

Chair: Alyssa Luksa, CCLS
Chair Elect: Diane Kaulen, MS, CCLS
Board Liaison: Rene Guibeau, CCLS, CPST, CIMI
ACLP Staff Liaison: Meagan Roloff, MA, CCLS, CAE, Director of Member Engagement & Partnerships

Mission: To develop and oversee a benchmarking and research datacenter; and provide data to support staff ratios on revised a AAP Statement

Senior Chair and Board Liaison: Leslie Daniels, CCLS
Chair-Elect:  Monica Gibson, CCLS
ACLP Staff Liaison:  Ame Enright, Director of Certification

Mission and Goals: The mission of the Certification Commission is to:

• Maintain a quality certification program for the child life profession.
• Work with ACLP staff and testing agency to oversee the certification process
• Review and update policies
• Develop and revise certification examination through job analysis studies and the management of item development and exam assembly work groups

COMMITTEES:
Appeals Committee
Chair: Toni Crowell-Petrungaro
Chair-Elect: Amanda Lockett
ACLP Staff Liaison: Ame Enright, Director of Certification

Ethics Committee
Chairs: Lucy Raab, CCLS
Chair-Elect: Geri Sehnert, CCLS
ACLP Staff Liaison: Ame Enright, Director of Certification

Exam Assembly Committee
Chair: Rebecka Dolyniuk, CCLS
Chair-Elect: Sara Burton, CCLS
ACLP Staff Liaison: Ame Enright, Director of Certification

Item Writing Committee
Chair: Megan Fisher, CCLS
Chair-Elect: Michelle Barksdale, CCLS
ACLP Staff Liaison:  Ame Enright, Director of Certification

Item Review Committee
Chair: Caitlin Leary, CCLS, CEIM/CIMI, CPST
Chair-Elect: Amber Hill, CCLS
ACLP Staff Liaison:  Ame Enright, Director of Certification

Recertification Audit Committee
Chair: Regina Gohr, CCLS
Chair-Elect: Morgan Ford, MS, CCLS
ACLP Staff Liaison:  Ame Enright, Director of Certification

Communications Committee
Chair: Tracey Craddock, CCLS
Chair-Elect: Susan Framarin, CCLS
ACLP Staff Liaison:  Ame Enright, Director of Certification

Chair: Denise Matsuyama Lai, CCLS, CIMI
Chair-Elect: Jenny Holthaus, CCLS
Board Liaison: Teresa Schoell, CCLS
ACLP Staff Liaison: Barb James, Manager of Membership & Operations

Mission and Goals: The role of the Community Based/Non-Traditional Role Committee is to:

• Provide oversight, guidance, and support to a variety of child life practices and services that exist outside of the traditional inpatient/outpatient hospital setting.
• Explore ways to engage the various practices, and identify issues relevant to their work
• Work in partnership with the ACLP to identify and recommend any actions or initiatives that the ACLP can address to support the needs of the community based practitioners.

• Explore opportunities for standards and supervision for practitioners.

Chair: Jamie Bruce, DrPH, CCLS
Chair-Elect: Megan O'Connell, MS, CCLS, CEIM
Board Liaison:  Kathryn Shamszad, MS, MPH, CCLS
ACLP Staff Liaison: Ramona Spencer, Director of Professional Development

Mission and Goals: The mission of the Conference Program Committee is to:

• Select presentations for the conference program and assist the ACLP staff in planning, organizing and conducting the ACLP annual conference.
• Develop conference program content and recommend major speakers for board approval
• Assist with on-site logistics
• Assist in securing exhibitors and sponsorships
• Review evaluation results for each conference and suggest improvements for future programs

Chair: Divna Wheelwright, MS, CCLS
Chair-Elect: Kia Ferrer, CCLS
Board Liaison: Kate Shamszad, CCLS
Staff Liaison: Camille Fields, Coordinator of Member Inclusion

Committee Charge: This committee will expand the dialogue about and elevate awareness of the importance of inclusion, equity, and diversity within ACLP and the field of child life. This committee will be charged with investigating and making recommendations for the development of a diversity and inclusion position statement.

Responsibilities:

• Explore and recommend: a position statement for ACLP on diversity, equity, and inclusion and definitions of key terms including cultural humility
• Make recommendations of initial actions ACLP can take to meaningfully engage members in conversation and action around diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• Review the ACLP diversity scholarship information and make recommendations for criteria to support racial, ethnic and cultural diversity.
• Identify resources for education and training to promote working with diverse racial, ethnic and cultural groups for both child life professionals and for students entering into child life. 

 

Chair: Kristina Richetts, CCLS
Chair-Elect: Rebecca Gordon, CCLS
Board Liaison: Sarah Patterson, CCLS
ACLP Staff Liaison: Emily Eagon, Manager of Program Standards

Mission and Goals:

• Provide linkages between academic and clinical programs
• evaluate challenges in the process of becoming a child life specialist
• provide support to emerging professionals through identification of resources that may be helpful

Chair: Teresa Schoell, CCLS
ACLP Staff Liaisons: Alison Heron CEO,

Mission and Goals: The mission of the Finance Committee is to: 

• Monitor the financial health of the ACLP
• Ensure that ACLP assets are protected and resources are used properly
• Ensure that ACLP complies with all applicable laws and reporting requirements

Co-Chairs: Janet Cross, CCLS, CPXP
Co-Chair: Eileen Clark, CCLS
Board Liaison: Lindsay Heering, CCLS
Staff Liaison:  Alison Heron, CEO

Governance Committee Charge:

The Governance Committee will conduct an ongoing review of the Association of Child Life Professionals (ACLP) governing documents and related governing processes. This committee will make necessary updates to these documents and processes as indicated to help ensure compliance with legal requirements and association business standards; as well as keeping current the professional and ethical standards related to Child Life Practitioner competency and scope of practice.

Responsibilities:

• Develop and implement a process for maintenance and updating of the bylaws with support and input from ACLP executive leadership and other experts as needed.
• Ensure the Bylaws and Policies & Procedures Manual comply with Maryland state corporate law, the Articles of Incorporation, and any applicable federal laws or statutes.
• Maintenance of the Official Documents-Review existing documents, make recommendations for updates/edits and implement process for continuing revision.
• Oversight of ACLP’s Policy and Procedure Manual to include identification and development of new policies per protocol, and review and editing of existing policies either per schedule, or per ACLP Board of Directors request.   
• Review and provide recommendations of other key governance documents as identified by ACLP executive leadership and board of directors.
• Establish and maintain a process whereby all related governing documents will be reviewed and updated on a regular and consistent cycle. These documents will primarily consist of, but are not limited to, the Association Bylaws, Policy and Procedure Manual, and The Official Documents (i.e. Child Life Competencies, Standards of Practice, Position Statements).

Chair: Alisha Saavedra, CCLS
Chair-Elect:  Victoria Isaacson, CCLS, NCC
Board Liaison: Sarah Patterson, CCLS
ACLP Staff Liaison: Emily Eagon, Manager of Program Standards

• Manage ACLP internship accreditation process in collaboration with ACLP office
• Oversee Internship Accreditation Reviewers

IAOC Reviewers - Review internship accreditation applications

Chair: Jill Koss, CCLS
Chair-Elect: Jessica Correnti, CCLS
Board Liaison: Kim Stephens, CCLS
Staff Liaison: Alison Heron, CEO

Task Force Charge: The charge of the task force is to identify barriers to the diversification of ACLP’s Board of Directors by increasing the Board’s understanding of the barriers, define the needs, and provide recommendations to the Board on strategies to deploy the support of increased diversification of the Board.   

Executive Editor: Alison Chrisler, PhD, CCLS
Associate Editor: Jennifer Staab, PhD, CCLS
Managing Editor and Staff Liaison: Keri O'Keefe, ACLP Publications Manager
Board Liaison: Kim Stephens, CCLS

The mission of the Journal Committee of the Association of Child Life Professionals is to produce The Journal of Child Life: Psychosocial Theory and Practice (JCL) and to develop the publication to become a valuable, peer-reviewed professional resource focusing on issues of interest to clinicians, administrators, educators and students in the child life field and others invested in the psychosocial care of children and families.

The group fulfills this mission in several ways:

• produces bi-annual issues of JCL with the end goal of producing issues on a quarterly basis to align with typical, scholarly journal frequency

• solicits and develops ideas for JCL content and features that discuss issues of interest to the child life community and others invested in the psychosocial care of children and families, with an emphasis on increasing the visibility of research and scholarship

• maintains integrity and accountability to authors, readers, and stakeholders in the process of blind peer review
• applies best practices in acquiring, reviewing, and strengthening manuscripts and materials for the publication

Journal Subcommittees:

Journal (Editors only)

Chair: Jessica Liles, CCLS
Chair-Elect: Sarah Tucker, CCLS
Board Liaison: Janelle Mitchell, CCLS
ACLP Staff Liaison: Ramona Spencer, Director of Professional Development

Mission and Goals: The mission of the Leadership Mentor Program Subcommittee is to:

•  Finalize the details and make updates as needed to conduct an annual, formal mentorship program, allowing for mentors to be identified and partnered with mentees
•  Develop and/or revise any necessary application documents and general operational documents that will accompany this process
•  In partnership with the Conference Program Committee, develop a formal program that can be used during the annual conference for 1st time attendees

Chair and Board Liaison: Rebecca Meyers, CCLS
Chair-Elect: Heather Bailey, CCLS
Board Liaison: Kim Stephens, MPA, CCLS
ACLP Staff Liaison:  Alison Heron, CEO

Mission and Goals: The mission of the Nominating Committee is to:

• Facilitate the succession of ACLP Leadership.
• Provide a slate of qualified candidates for Board of Directors positions
• Administer the election process with ACLP staff
• Recommend members for committees and other leadership positions 

Board Liaison: Kim Stephens, CCLS
ACLP Staff Liaison: Jennifer Lipsey, CEO

Mission and Goals: The mission of the Past Presidents Advisory Group is to serve as a resource to the association, as requested by the current President.

Chair: Stacey Koenig, CCLS
Chair-Elect: Brianne Ortiz, MS, CCLS
Board Liaison: Riley Hammond, MS, CCLS
ACLP Staff Liaison:  Meagan Roloff, MA, CCLS, CAE, Director of Member Engagement & Partnerships

Mission and Goals: The role of this task force is to: 

• Formulate strategies to engage the Association of Child Life Professionals in the Patient and Family Experience work

• Propose and recommend partnership opportunities, identify possible pilot projects that will allow us to explore the impact of Child Life Specialists on the Patient Experience, evaluate ways to support the work of Child Life Specialists in relationship to the Patient and Family Experience, and recommend ways to increase our involvement and recognition in this work. 

Chair: Tessa Randolph, CCLS
Chair-Elect:  Sammi Davis, MS, CCLS II
Board Liaison: Kathryn Shamszad, MS, MPH, CCLS
ACLP Staff Liaison: Mary Bean, Executive Assistant

Mission and Goals: The mission of the Professional Resources Sub-Committee is to:

• Ensure that ACLP is the undisputed resource for the child life profession
• Gather, evaluate, and create high-quality resources for use by members of the ACLP community
• Recommend publications, guidelines, position papers, or documents
• Review and evaluate external child life related publications/resources

Chair: Elana Brewer, CCLS
Chair-Elect: Jennifer Staab, CCLS
Board Liaison: Rene Assetta Guilbeau, CCLS, CPST, CIMI
Staff Liaison: Meagan Roloff, Director of Member Engagement and Partnerships

Task Force Charge: This task force is charged with researching and developing guidelines which outline a staffing analytics model that can be used to inform number of child life FTEs required to meet the emotional acuity needs of identified patients.  This metric should have the potential for utilization across varying patient care areas and integrates child life practice standards and financial perspectives so to inform staffing and budgetary levels.

Responsibilities:

• Develop a timeline by which the task force will produce deliverables.
• Create value statement on the utilization of the CPFI (Capacity for Patient/Family Impact) thru participation in the Child life Professional Data Center (CLPDC) to establish a Child Life staff metric.
• Explore and make recommendations on the utilization of an emotional acuity tool to be used in the analytics metric.  Specifically identifying one singular tool vs. any tool which assesses emotional acuity.
• Research potential use of the EMR for data collection.\
• Include multi-disciplinary perspective, utilizing expertise from Finance, Quality, and Administration.
• Conduct a pilot to test the validity of the analytics formula in establishing a required budgeted FTE count.
• Include additional non-task force related institutions in the pilot who are already consistently engaging in data input in the CLPDC.  Create an education module related to pilot participation.
• Create deliverable of the analytics tool in the form of a guideline that includes definitions, scripting, and case examples of utilization.

Chair: Katy Tenhulzen, CCLS
Chair-Elect: Katie Walker, CCLS
Board Liaison: Kim Stephens, CCLS
Staff Liaison: Ramona Spencer, Director of Professional Development

Task Force Charge: This task force is charged with creating a document/deliverable(s) identifying the impact of sibling focused programming, including research on the needs of sibling support services and the role of child life professionals in this work. 

Responsibilities:

• Develop Child Life Working with Siblings white paper identifying the unique needs of siblings, and the unique value (KSAs) of child life professionals in implementing sibling-focused programming.
• Review existing research and literature to develop standards for best practice in working with siblings.
• Identify current programming trends within the child life profession to support evidence-based practices
• Align recommendations and criteria with current and relevant ACLP standards, competencies, guidelines, certification requirements and other key resources.
• Develop a position statement based on the earlier written white paper.

Chair: Rachel Delevett, CCLS
Chair-Elect: Amy Waters, CCLS
Board Liaison: Janelle Mitchell, CCLS
ACLP Staff Liaison: Ramona Spencer, Director of Professional Development

Mission and Goals:

• Develop and support an event during the annual conference to orient and engage new attendees.
  
• Support and provide evaluation for the process by which ACLP members are identified and recruited for participation on committees, task forces, and other projects.
  
• Develop, maintain and promote a variety of initiatives that will recognize volunteers for their service.
  
• Support the development and delivery of a leadership recognition event as part of the annual conference
  
• Research and recommend innovative, evidence-based approaches for volunteer engagement to promote quality member experience across the organization.
  
• Identify, support and help create pathways for volunteer engagement to encourage ongoing development within the association.
  
• Survey volunteers for successes, challenges and next opportunities with ACLP after volunteer opportunity is over.
  

Chair: Alissa Rodriguez, CCLS
Chair-Elect: Anna Latcham, CCLS
Board Liaison: Kate Shamszad, MS, MPH, CCLS
ACLP Staff Liaisons: Keri O'Keefe, Director of Communications & Publications

Mission and Goals: Provide content for social media outlets