Through formal and informal information gathering, the community shared that the internship application process was long, cumbersome, and inequitable. The goal of the changes is to create a more equitable pathway into the profession and to enhance the application component of the internship process for all stakeholders involved.

Over the past few years, stakeholders and subject matter experts from various child life roles such as academia, clinical sites, and pre-certification have partnered with psychometric services to develop the new application. For more information visit the Internship Readiness Project webpage.

Utilize the Internship Readiness Common Application and associated resources, sign the updated Internship Access & Equity Pledge coming January 2023, provide feedback via survey/listening sessions/and other requested avenues.

No, this application was only intended for internship use.

Yes, the goal is for the Internship Readiness Common Application to be used everywhere. 

https://aclp.smapply.io/ 

Sample application

This will be the only application offered by ACLP. We ask for the support of the leaders in our field and feedback on how we can assist programs in the use of this application. Sites can also sign the Internship Access & Equity Pledge to show support.

We appreciate the feedback on this term. It represents neither strength-based language nor the intended designation. The language has been adjusted to internship ready candidate. The application is only a part of the internship selection process. The goal of the application is to identify candidates who are ready for internship on day 1 of the clinical training experience.

Applicants may choose to use a practicum or pre-internship experience as one of their 6 listed relevant experiences on the internship readiness common application.

Experiences within healthcare settings include any environment involving children and families due to medical encounters. Examples include but are not limited to volunteering in a hospital, programs for children with medical diagnoses, child life pre-internship experiences, volunteering at hospice sites, paid work experience in a hospital setting. Please reference the Language Associated with the Internship Readiness Common Application resource for additional definitions.

This new application does not have a minimum hours requirement.

Specifically, practicums were not required in the previous common application process. Additionally, completing a practicum is not a requirement to sit for the Child Life Professional Certification Exam. While practicums remain an advantageous experience within the field of child life, other pre-internship, hands-on experiences can offer valuable learning opportunities that are more accessible to aspiring professionals and should also be considered.

Yes 

Unofficial transcripts do contain GPAs; however, they also allow sites to see a more comprehensive perspective of the learner's experience - the success in child life related courses, impact of previous majors.

Time to complete an application (whether more time to answer more questions or shorter questions) does not determine internship readiness. However, this application is designed to allow applicants the ability to demonstrate the KSAs of internship readiness. This is a new concept to the application process.

The KSAs are the same for any internship ready candidate.

Having applicants select 6 experiences encourages critical thinking and decision-making, it promotes quality over quantity, it standardizes the application, and it decreases time commitment for reviewers.

Applicants are required to include at least one experience within a healthcare setting in their application.

This is great feedback. The Internship Readiness Work Group is continuing to collect feedback via surveys, listening sessions, and other avenues. The work group will take all feedback into consideration and adjust as needed.

No, this is not being considered at this time.

This has been considered by ACLP and is not an option at this time. Candidates are responsible for submitting their application directly to the programs they wish to apply. 

For now, the number of hours in that section is going to remain. There is a current standard that requires applicants to accredited programs to accrue 100 hours of experience with well infants, children, youth and/or families and 100 hours of experience with infants, children, youth and/or families in stressful situations, health care settings and/or programs designed for children with special needs. Aside from that, it is helpful to use the number of hours when considering appropriate clinical placements and potential areas the learner would need additional exposure.

Discussion about the inclusion of the Eligibility Assessment focused on how helpful it is for internship sites to learn how applicants meet the course requirements as well as demonstrating their journey toward certification. Perhaps this is an option to be considered at a later date.

Benchmarking research was not completed as part of this current project. Other psychosocial support professions have educational processes and clinical training pathways that differ greatly from the current child life internship system. However, the consultant used a validation study to inform decisions and guide the creation of the Internship Readiness Common Application. Comparative analysis across allied health professions could be part of future work.

This is absolutely something that is being considered throughout many different committees within ACLP. So we are certainly looking at the dates and trying to really consider every stakeholder perspective here and think about dates that will work for candidates, candidates in academic programs, candidates not in academic programs, as well as for the internship sites who are receiving these applications, reviewing them, but also onboarding interns during their semester cycles. So it's complicated, but we are certainly looking at it and will hopefully have some information soon.

The primary information evidence was our conversations with each other and with our colleagues. From that very first think tank when we were having discussions centered around what are the experiences of students with expansive academics and clinical sites and we continued to utilize that as a starting point. We also utilized a psychometric service and did a validation study, once we had developed the internship readiness KSAs to validate that we were on track. An outline of the history of the development of the KSA is also on the internship readiness page on childlife.org.

The Internship Readiness Work Group is focused on the Internship Readiness Common Application. This application is not intended for practicums.

It is important to support applicants for whom English is a second language. It is our hope to gain insight about any barriers the new common application may present to different stakeholder groups through data collection in March 2023. We remain open to any suggestions you might have on how to best support this group.

Regardless of affiliation agreements, our hope is that all programs use the new application as it represents a fair, equitable and inclusive process for each stakeholder involved along the pathway to the child life profession.

The new Internship Readiness Common Application will be the sole application provided by ACLP as of January 6, 2023. This will be used for the Fall 2023 semester. For summer 2023, students will continue to use the current common application.

Only the pilot sites will be able to use the new application prior to January 6, 2023. All sites will have access to the Internship Readiness Common Application on January 6, 2023 for Fall 2023 application cycle.

We will collect feedback/data via stakeholder surveys, listening sessions, and other avenues starting in March 2023. The data and assessment will be communicated via email, social media, and the ACLP website.

97% of respondents had experience with the previous version of the ACLP Common Application – that could be during the same cycle or a previous cycle.

Yes, there was a lot of diversity in the information provided within the application, and we will continue to assess how the application impacts diversity more broadly as well.

At this time, no additional pilot sites will be utilizing the new application for the Summer 2023 Internship Cycle. The internship readiness project has been in the works since 2020. With the goals of diversifying the membership and strengthening a vital component of initiation into the professional community, stakeholders and subject matter experts have spent years developing this new application. The Internship Readiness Work Group plans on collecting feedback in 2023 via surveys, listening sessions, and other avenues after the launch. The group will take all feedback into consideration and continue to adjust as needed. 

One pilot site shared, “We decided to do a brief 4 question phone interview and then narrow down to longer zoom interviews.”

The original plan was to collect data over 2 cycles. However, the sites who agreed to participate in the pilot do not offer internship placements over the summer and therefore do not accept applications for the Jan 5 application deadline. Knowing that there is no perfect time to implement this type of change, the decision was made to proceed with the launch rather than delay it. The ACLP will continue to collect data after the launch and will remain open to making improvements that better serve stakeholders.

We did not request any additional information outside of the application so that we could truly test the application and the information we were getting from it. Our site we received around 65 applications I believe, and we narrowed that down to about half after we scored it and we did many phone interviews where we asked for questions that involved the KSAs that we felt were very important for us to know more information about from the applicants. And from there we then narrowed it down to another smaller group where we did zoom interviews that were much longer and looking for the best intern for us. So it was very similar to our current or old process. The biggest work for us was developing the rubric to grade the new applications on and that is still a work in progress. I'll be honest, it felt a little bit intimidating at first, but with the resources and the conversations we've had around it and the work we've done as a work group now, it proved we ended up with really strong candidates. So through the interview and the application, it worked for us and I'm very excited about the future with this application.

While an effort was made by pilot sites to collect feedback from staff who participated in the pilot application and do not serve on the Internship Readiness Work Group, we acknowledge that bias exists within the feedback from pilot programs. Data was also collected from applicants post-application submission and no applicants are work group members. We look forward to gathering more information from all stakeholders in the transition to the Internship Readiness Common Application.

All candidates, including those enrolled in an academic endorsed program, should upload an Eligibility Assessment. The endorsed program letter is no longer required.

Not currently. It is up to the clinical sites. If there are courses in-progress, registration will be visible on students’ unofficial transcript(s).

Internship readiness necessitates collaboration and integrity amongst many stakeholders in the child life community. About a third of the work group members were academic child life professionals. They brought their knowledge of child life academic preparation to this project. For example, if you look at the KSA 2.04, it says “Knowledge of child development and how each developmental stage is impacted by illness, stress, and hospitalization.” A student could develop this KSA from their child development and child life courses. Also, the language of the KSAs is realistic for what a student can obtain in an academic setting.  For example, KSA 1.02 says, “awareness of the Child Life Code of Ethics.” This means that the expectation is that an emerging professional has been exposed and familiarized with the Child Life Code of Ethics- not the expectation that they are skilled at applying it in daily practice. Academics have the opportunity to introduce students to the Child Life Code of Ethics by requiring it as a reading or helping them begin to be aware of the principles through ethical scenarios. As a sample to the working group’s conversation, if you look at KSA 1.03, it reads “exposure to how theory and evidence guide child life practice.” During this conversation, we asked ourselves what types of courses or experience would support this development. We discussed the requirement for child development and family systems courses which would provide exposure to theories, and we discussed the requirement of the research course which would expose students to critically reviewing research to use studies as evidence to support practices.

As an academic, I am excited about how I can use the KSAs in my curriculum. I often get asked by students, “Well what do I need to do to get an internship?” To be honest, before, I didn’t have a concrete answer- a general answer of GPA, experience with well children, x number of practicum hours, and the ability to answer questions about child life. The KSAs give students a concrete answer to work towards.  Students now know if I want to be internship ready, these are the knowledge, skills, and abilities that I need to demonstrate in my application.

As an academic, I plan to incorporate it into assignments. For example, during the first few classes of the semester asking students what all they did last summer and saying well let’s look at the KSAs and discuss where that learning fits into internship readiness. Those are a few examples of how the academic curriculum connects to internship readiness.

The responsibility of preparing students for Internship Readiness does not solely lie with academic programs. Some Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSAs) will be acquired through experiences obtained outside of academics such as work/volunteer experience. The KSA document should prove a helpful tool for academic programs seeking to best prepare students for an internship experience. 

The intention was never to remove the academic voice. As an academic and as a member of this work group I can assure you that this was a concern of mine, too. The intention was to reduce burden throughout the entire application process. So as an academician, I felt that throughout our work together in this work group, the academic experience was very much considered and valued. 

I listened carefully to our clinical colleagues, and they shared that the letters are often not a helpful or comprehensive source of information regarding an applicant's experiences or readiness for an internship. I also listened carefully to my colleagues who participated in this work group when they shared that it's become increasingly difficult and time consuming for applicants to gather these letters. So, removing the letter of recommendation then decreases the time commitment for reviewers, for academics, as well as for applicants. The truth is, as academics if we've done our job well, and provided our students with a solid academic experience that facilitated critical thinking and created opportunities for students to intentionally make meaningful connections between their academic experiences and their field based learning opportunities, then they should be able to shine all on their own through their application process. After all, that's the bigger picture goal, right? We're hopeful that by eliminating the recommendation, it creates a greater focus for sites to really read into what applicants are choosing to include in their application instead of having to read into letters of recommendation.

In considering the Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities that have been developed - I intend to take intentional time in my classes to encourage my students to make meaning of how their outside of course experiences align with the KSAs and to encourage them to make meaning of their experiences in this way.

Thank you for your comment - this is really honest and I'm sure you are not alone in this perspective. We're hopeful that by eliminating the recommendation this creates a greater focus for sites to really read into what applicants are choosing to include in their applications....instead of having to "read into" recommendations.

Reference letters are taxing on applicants, academic professionals, and reviewers. Additionally, feedback collected from stakeholders during the development of the Internship Readiness Common Application indicated that there is inconsistency in recommenders’ content and knowledge of applicants, making letters of recommendation an inequitable source of information. Programs are welcome to call references at a later point in the application process if that would be helpful in making final determinations.

There are many clinical internship sites that do not require applicants to be Master's prepared. Information regarding degree/affiliation requirements should be clearly stated on an internship program’s website.

ACLP has paused the endorsement of academic programs. The Academic Excellence Task Force is gathering information on the best way to recognize high quality academic programs with the mindset of addressing problems identified in the current endorsement program. Therefore, discussions about how the Common Application would fit into endorsements are limited due to this pause. However, if endorsement or another process for recognizing quality academic programs is continued, they will have the conversation with recognition of the importance of giving academic programs time to meet any changes that may come about. Related to endorsement. There have been several questions regarding how the students from endorsed programs submit eligibility assessments as part of the application. During the pilot study, we noticed that students from endorsed programs were attaching a variety of things as part of the eligibility assessment. So, one of the next items that the internship readiness work group will be working on is to give better directions as to what students from endorsed programs should be attaching for the eligibility assessment component.

Not currently. As a part of the application students affirm that the information provided is accurate.

The hope and goal is that this application provides enough information for sites to be able to find internship ready candidates from the application as is. The addition of more items has the potential to increase bias and add work for each stakeholder. One consideration is that a site could ask for additional items, such as recommendations, closer to the time of making an offer to an intern to better align with HR processes. Please refer back to the Removal of Application Components Rationale resource. It really speaks to the why behind what was removed from the previous common application, the thinking behind that, and how we sought to remove bias and burden for all stakeholders.

Completing a practicum is not a requirement to sit for the Child Life Professional Certification Exam. While practicums remain an advantageous experience within the field of child life, other pre-internship, hands-on experiences can offer valuable learning opportunities that are more accessible to aspiring professionals and should also be considered. Applicants may choose to use a practicum or pre-internship experience as one of their 6 listed relevant experiences on the Internship Readiness Common Application.

Yes, this application represents a shift in the types of information gathered from applicants. However, one goal of the Internship Readiness Common Application is to improve the application process for all stakeholders. By aligning each piece of the new application with an identified knowledge, skill, or ability, the responsibility rests with the applicant to use written communication skills to highlight how their academic preparation and hands-on experiences have contributed to becoming internship ready. A resource is currently being developed (and anticipated before the launch) that will assist clinical sites in assessing information provided in the new application.

There are many hands-on experiences that offer valuable learning opportunities that are more accessible to aspiring child life professionals, and these should also be considered. Applicants can use these experiences or traditional practicum experiences to demonstrate their knowledge, skills, and abilities.

It will take the entire child life community to begin to make changes. Individual sites still govern their own application and selection process. The hope is that individual sites will begin to hear the positive responses from other sites who have used it and will move toward this model. Additionally, ACLP is asking programs to consider signing the Internship Access & Equity Pledge.

This is something that could be assessed during an interview. The application's purpose is to help sites determine an applicant's internship readiness.

Academic information can be gathered from the Eligibility Assessment and transcript portions of the application. It is up to the internship site to determine if coursework must be completed prior to the start of the internship. This is a current requirement for accredited programs regarding coursework and the Internship Accreditation Oversight Committee is in the process of reviewing the accreditation standards.

Written communication will be able to be assessed via the 5 written responses within the application. Information that would typically be included in a resume is accounted for in the Experience Documentation section where six experiences are detailed in a concise and consistent format. This encourages critical thinking on the part of the applicant to assess which six experiences have best prepared them for an internship. Additionally, the skill of writing/developing cover letters and resumes is part of the ACLP Internship Curriculum Modules (Module 14 – Professional Development).

Using the Internship Readiness Common Application is not currently an accreditation standard .

Nothing is changing about the current selection or determination process. Individual sites are still in full control of the review of applications, interviews, and selection of interns.

There are two areas that do not explicitly align. 1. A question about all required courses needed to be completed and 2. Requiring a minimum number of hours with well children and then also with children in stressful situations. The Internship Accreditation Oversight Committee is initiating a review of accreditation standards to determine the next steps.

Rubrics help to reduce bias by encouraging an objective review of the materials and reducing the opportunity for a subjective review. Subjectivity increases the chances of bias influencing the evaluation of materials.

Yes, the goal is to release the rubric resource prior to January 6, 2023.

The rubric resource the Internship Readiness Work Group is developing will include suggested metrics. In addition, the new application should encourage students to highlight their learning in these experiences and how these experiences connect to the KSAs.

The weight/ownership is put on learners to demonstrate their knowledge, skills, and abilities. Learners are able to evidence what they have learned from both academic and experiential settings. We are continuing to collect feedback/data via survey, listening sessions, and other avenues. We will take all feedback into consideration and make adjustments as needed.

Feedback regarding the Internship Readiness Common Application will continue to be collected via survey, listening sessions, and other avenues after the launch. We will take all feedback into consideration and make adjustments as needed.

Internship sites are allowed to have different models, in contrast to the 4-month model. There are some internships who utilize a part-time 7-month model

Yes, as long as the requirements on the Clinical Experience Verification Form are met. 

At this point. We're unsure of the impact on the number of applications that will be received by clinical sites, so all we can really share today is what our pilot sites noticed during the pilot period. The average number of applications was 64. Two of the sites said that was typical for them and one site did say that was a few more. I don't want to make assumptions. But in case this question is driven by concern around time spent reviewing applications, I did want to also highlight that all three pilot sites agreed that the amount of time to review each application was significantly reduced.

The rubric resource is being developed as a reference guide for clinical internship sites to utilize to develop their own evaluation tool. The goal is for evaluation at clinical internship sites to suit the needs of each program and help them select a candidate who will ultimately be successful in their specific internship. I want to make it very clear, the rubric resource is not going to be a one size fits all templates that we're all utilizing to evaluate the same applications. We would all land on the same candidates and that would not be the direction that we're trying to go. Instead, we want to give suggestions for clinical internship sites on how to consider the content that they're reviewing. And we want to give prompts around where programs can have dialogue about where potential biases might be built into evaluations.

I'll give some anecdotal feedback as a pilot site. We made it very evident on our web page (where students had to navigate to submit the Internship Readiness Common Application) some of those components that we were looking for. We want each clinical site to make some determinations, and then make it clear for candidates, what they will be evaluated on. We want to make sure that the Internship Readiness Common Application captures all the information that clinical sites will evaluate and so from the candidate and clinical site perspectives it is a uniform process. Then the next step of evaluation will be that deep dive and where some differentiation will fall.

It's hard for us to know how hospitals will respond and what will be frowned upon. I appreciate the question. But as it stands right now, there are times when eligibility assessments are not complete, and I don’t think it’s frowned upon.

We recognize as the Internship Accreditation Oversight Committee (IAOC) that some of the new features of the Internship Readiness Common Application do not align with the accreditation standards. And those are going to be reviewed. The IAOC is initiating a review of the accreditation standards and will be forthcoming with more information.

It's very important to call out that there is more than one question within the application. This one is talking about which element from the KSAs you most want to grow and learn about during your internship. That is one of five questions currently included in the written response section of the application. The instructions for the written response section encourages applicants to consider the entire list of KSAs and asks the candidates to make the connections to all the answers in the written responses. And so, your question only highlights the prompt that names the KSAs, but in the instructions above the written responses, it asks the candidates to consider all the KSAs in the responses.

I don't know if that's something that we've talked about. But I imagine that is something that we can take back to the group as we continue to listen to all of this feedback and provide resources and materials that will make this a successful launch and ensure that programs are finding internship ready candidates. Also remember, sites have recommended curriculum modules that they're using to help guide the training during the internships experience. The internship KSA is our framework to help determine if a candidate is ready to start their internship on day one. So yes, it's important for the review and selection process, but in terms of clinical training, there are internship curriculum modules that help guide that training.

Update your website to guide applicants through the new process. The internship readiness guide that has been developed as a resource has some really great language and kind of step-by-step instructions so we actually just linked directly to that for people that were considering applying to our internship. I would also recommend doing a deep dive into all the other resources that are available. When the rubric resource becomes available, that's another piece that internship sites can consider sharing with their potential applicants about how they are approaching the internship readiness common application. Please also see our Tips for Internship Sites: Accepting Electronic Applications.

Right now, the application has three tasks that have to be completed and that is the application portion, the upload of the eligibility assessment, and then the upload of the unofficial transcript(s). Beyond that, with the requirements, again, we are putting a lot of control in the applicants hands to look at the KSAs to examine their own preparation and to be able to demonstrate and showcase how all of that's connected to their growth and development in the field of child life. So right now, there's no feature on the online application that would eliminate anyone in terms of the requirements. But this is a process. As you can tell by all the questions that are still rolling in, there are a lot of questions and concerns about the transition. And really what I can tell you is that we continue to be open to receiving feedback, and we are open to making changes to maximize this application.

The Internship Readiness KSAs provides a framework outlining what is expected of aspiring professionals to learn about the child life profession by the start of the clinical internship experience. Each component of the Internship Readiness Common Application aligns with one or more KSAs. Applicants are asked to use critical thinking skills to connect the information presented throughout the application with the KSAs, specifically within the written responses section. Each of the 5 written responses presents an opportunity for applicants to showcase their knowledge of the child life profession by making clear links from the examples they describe to the KSAs. Therefore, internship sites are able to assess internship readiness by evaluating which experiences the applicant choses to describe and how well those experiences were connected to the Internship Readiness KSAs.

Yes, moving into 2023 we are continuing to collect feedback/data via stakeholder surveys, listening sessions, and other avenues. We will take all feedback into consideration and make adjustments as needed.

Learners will have to evaluate and prioritize which experiences to highlight within their application and align with the KSAs. Additional experiences can be discussed during the interviews if needed.

Yes

A single PDF that includes the eligibility assessment, the transcripts, and the completed application.

Fees are an example of how bias and privilege are added into the application process. While ACLP cannot mandate hospitals to exclude charging a fee, it is the hope that hospital sites will consider not charging a fee to applicants.

This is something the Internship Readiness Work Group will consider moving forward. 

A print to PDF button has been added to the eligibility assessment page to facilitate the submission of consistent eligibility assessments.

Please see the Internship Readiness Common Application Guide

All transcripts that evidence your child life coursework progression. Both official/unofficial transcripts are accepted. 

By having applicants select only six experiences, it encourages quality over quantity of experiences. It standardizes the application. It decreases the time commitment for reviewers. It also has learners use critical thinking skills to really decide which of the experiences they've had truly helped prepare them the best for their internship.

The ACLP website has a direct link to the internship readiness webpage that has tons of information about the process that we've been trying to share with you with these town halls, but then also the resources that the work group has been developing. In my opinion, the most important resource for an applicant is going to be the internship readiness KSAs document. Yes, it's new but it's also a very important framework for applicants to become familiar with and to really help that help guide them in the completion of the internship readiness application itself. There's also a guide that walks applicants through each step of the application and tasks that needed to be completed. There's also a video that helps walk through the application as well. Some other resources that the work group has published include the language associated with the Internship Readiness Common Application. That document provides some definitions, some clarity, for language that appears within the common application that again, might be new. Those are some important resources for applicants to reference.

That is correct. There is no minimum number of hours required as part of the new application.

You have up to up to six experiences that you can include, but they would be separate experiences if they are from two different hospitals. Really the decision is up to you on and whether both of them are really relevant to your growth and development and can help you demonstrate, highlight, and showcase the internship readiness KSAs. If you feel strongly that both of those separate experiences can do that, then include them both.

One of the things that we've really, really, really looked at in the work group was how do we make child life more accessible and break out of the traditional, very small boxes of experience that we've been asking for from students for a long time? Because we recognize that there are many different avenues to gain experience working with children and families. So an experience can encompass any interaction that you have with a family in a professional capacity or a volunteer capacity. If you can speak to it and how it's prepared you according to the KSAs, it can be included as an experience. We really want to leave it up to the applicant to be able to showcase their experiences in a way that the application currently doesn't do.

Applicants distinguish between experiences within healthcare settings and outside of healthcare settings. For definitions of these terms, please reference the Language Association with the Internship Readiness Common Application resource.

Applicants are asked to make a choice about which of their experiences are most relevant to the field of child life and how those experiences best showcase the applicant’s growth and development of the KSAs. Critical thinking skills are needed to understand how the KSAs are present or are applied within each hands on or field experience.

Unless specifically requested by an internship program, please do not submit any additional materials with your Internship Readiness Common Application.