Child Life Competencies

The ability to assess the developmental and psychosocial needs of infants, children, youth, and families.

- Articulate theories of human growth and development, play, and family systems.
- Describe formal and informal techniques to assess developmental and emotional state.
- Identify relevant data used to develop a comprehensive child life assessment.
- Identify factors that impact a child and family’s vulnerability to stress and trauma.
- Identify how children and families interpret and make meaning of health, illness, and loss.
- Recognize families as they define themselves, identifying strengths and challenges in family dynamics and community supports.
- Describe the cyclical process of assessment, plan, intervention, and evaluation of child life services.

- Apply formal and informal techniques to assess developmental level and emotional state.
- Integrate the strengths and resources of the child and family into the plan of care.
- Prioritize child life services based on susceptibility to stress and trauma.
- Effectively collaborate with members of the service team to create a collaborative plan of care.
- Apply the cyclical process of assessment, plan, intervention, and evaluation of services to keep assessments accurate and up-to-date.

The ability to initiate and maintain meaningful and therapeutic relationships with infants, children, youth, and families.

- Articulate the tenets of patient and family-centered care.
- Describe the essential elements of the therapeutic relationship.
- Identify effective communication skills to support a child and family.
- Identify values related to sociocultural diversity.
- Recognize educational opportunities and resources that are responsive to the needs of the child and family in order to promote learning and mastery.

- Build trust and rapport with infants, children, youth, and families.
- Maintain appropriate professional boundaries to preserve the therapeutic relationship.
- Utilize effective communication skills in the process of supporting children and families.
- Utilize therapeutic and creative modalities to meet individual developmental and emotional needs.
- Match and pace interactions according to developmental level, emotional state, family preferences, and individual needs.
- Support the central role of the family, valuing strengths and needs in implementing child life services.
- Demonstrate respect for sociocultural diversity.

The ability to provide opportunities for play for infants, children, youth, and families.

- Articulate the definitions and functions of play.
- Identify the developmental and social milestones of play.
- Identify therapeutic approaches that facilitate open-ended, developmentally-supportive play and expressive arts.
- Understand common play themes relevant to life events and healthcare experiences.
- Identify toys and materials that encourage open-ended and expressive play, as well as close-ended play, and the value and purpose of each.
- Recognize ways in which activities and materials can encourage cultural connections.
- Identify theories related to play that best support child life practice.

- Demonstrate the ability to assess individual play needs and incorporate play into daily practice.
- Facilitate opportunities for play to decrease distress, provide enjoyment and comfort, enhance mastery, and promote healing.
- Plan and implement appropriate play activities and materials for children and families of diverse cultures, varying developmental needs, and physical abilities.
- Plan and implement activities that encourage expression of a range of emotions.
- Demonstrate the ability to observe a child’s play to conduct a developmental and coping assessment.
- Utilize child-centered responses and techniques to facilitate a safe, non-judgmental, non-evaluative environment for children to explore and express themselves.
- Establish safe and engaging play spaces that promote cross-cultural connections, facilitate group play, and encourage children to choose and explore at their own pace.
- Model and teach child-directed play skills to build capacity in others, such as volunteers, medical staff, and family caregivers.

The ability to provide a safe, therapeutic and healing environment for infants, children, youth, and families.

- Explain the impact of environmental design on human behavior.
- Identify emotional safety hazards and corresponding preventive and protective measures to include education on mandated reporting.
- Identify environmental safety hazards and corresponding preventive and protective measures.
- Recognize public health guidelines for technology in early childhood and identify digital content that facilitates coping.
- Identify knowledge of privacy and confidentiality policies.

- Establish and maintain a therapeutic, healing and family-centered environment.
- Provide input about facility design to promote orientation, comfort, healing, culturally inclusive materials, security and normalization.
- Implement infection control and safety policies and procedures.
- Demonstrate respect for and facilitate privacy and confidentiality.

The ability support infants, children, youth, and families in coping with stressful events.

- Identify types of stressful events affecting children and families, including medical procedures, pain, traumatic life events, loss, end of life, and grief work.
- Identify factors that may impact vulnerability to stress.
- Describe immediate and long term coping styles and techniques, as well as their effect on adjustment and behavior.
- Describe sensory, cognitive, and behavioral coping strategies specific to developmental stages and populations.
- Articulate effective non-pharmacological pain management techniques.
- Identify principles of effective advocacy in partnership with families and other team members.
- Understand the role of communication, particularly active listening and emphatic responding, in building relationships with families undergoing stress.
- Understand the role of self-reflection in aiding patients and families in the process of mourning.
- Identify various stages or models of grief surrounding the dying process.

- Assess responses to stress; plan, implement and evaluate care accordingly.
- Introduce and facilitate rehearsal of techniques to aid immediate and long term coping, with consideration for the unique needs of the individual and family, such as coping style, previous experience, developmental level, culture, spirituality, family situation, and emotional state.
- Facilitate mastery of potentially stressful experiences.
- Utilize appropriate non-pharmacological pain management strategies.
- Empower and support patients and families to effectively self-advocate as well as advocate on behalf of those who cannot do so.
- Demonstrate an ability to use verbal and non-verbal emphatic responses with children and caregivers during stressful events.
- Implement a team plan for coping support during medical procedures, including parental presence with guidance, comfort positions, role responsibilities, and distraction techniques to help children refocus their attention.
- Facilitate opportunities for play and dialogue following stressful events to reflect upon emotional responses and reinforce coping skills.
- Act as a team participant in bereavement work on behalf of families.
- Assess self-awareness skills concerning stress, trauma response, loss, and grief work in order to practice effective self-reflection.

The ability to provide teaching, specific to the population served, including psychological preparation for potentially stressful experiences, with infants, children, youth and families.

- Identify basic terminology, processes, and expected plan of care for the population served.
- Articulate learning styles and needs of individuals with various developmental levels, emotional states, and of diverse backgrounds and experiences.
- Identify teaching techniques for use with individuals of diverse developmental levels and learning needs.
- Describe common fears, misconceptions and concerns of individuals in each developmental stage.
- Describe how children construct knowledge of their healthcare experience through interaction with other children, adults, and materials.
- Articulate fundamentals of psychological preparation found in child life literature.