Conference Attendance Justification Toolkit
In keeping with ACLP's mission to provide quality professional development, we offer these tools to provide a clear path to assist you in achieving your educational goals by attending the Child Life Conference.
We invite you to review the materials in this section which will assist you in communicating the value of participating in the conference experience to your manager. Your manager or supervisor is sure to appreciate the investment made into your professional development as well as greater knowledge that you can apply directly to patient care.
Justification Letter
Prior to conference, you may have to submit forms or letters to your supervisor or program to approve the costs associated with attending the Child Life Conference. We have created a template letter you can use to help you with your efforts.
Download the Justification Letter
Benefits of Conference Attendance
As a child life specialist, we understand that you need to be on the cutting edge of evidence-based practice and it remains the goal of the conference to help you ensure and facilitate the best possible patient outcomes. When you propose attending the Child Life Conference, focus specifically on what you will bring back to your program to demonstrate return on the investment.
Skills & Knowledge Benefits
State your hospital's or program's specific goals or needs, and then state how specific components of the conference will help meet those needs.
- Which topics or specific sessions have particular relevance to your job, program, or hospital's current priorities and goals or needs? Identify specifically what you can use, and how.
- Which of the sessions are most relevant to your skill development, goals, or your program/hospital's expectations of you? What new skills, techniques, or approaches will you bring back?
Networking Benefits
Attending the Child Life Conference will enable you to meet and interact with industry professionals and experts from around the country. You will be able to acquire valuable information and insights, gain an understanding of what other child life specialists and programs are talking about and planning for, and how they are accomplishing certain goals or tackling specific challenges that are similar to your own.
Exhibit Hall Benefits
The exhibit hall will showcase vendors with new products you could use or evaluate for potential future use. It's an opportunity to collect first-hand information and compare competing technologies all in one place. It's also a chance to discover companies you've never heard of before, offering solutions you don't even know about yet, so you can make more informed decisions for current and future projects.
Justification Tips
The days spent at the Child Life Conference will be the most cost-effective educational and professional development choice you will make all year.
Tips for Building Your Case for Attending the Child Life Conference:
- Focus on the issues at hand. Explain what you plan to get out of attending and how that will benefit your work, patients, and organization or hospital. Explore the conference session schedule and make a list of the sessions that will help you address those groups.
- Share and present. Offer to present to your colleagues to share what you learned after conference. They will get the benefits of your attendance, too.
- Talk up the takeaways. From networking opportunities to practical takeaways from each session attending a live conference provides information you can put into action when you get home. In addition, you can bring back ideas or solutions from new or improved products and/or services presented in the exhibit hall.
- Take advantage of early registration. Register early for lowest registration, hotel, and airfare rates. You can save by signing up before the early registration deadlines.
- Call attention to quality. As the premier source for child life education, the Child Life Conference offer a comprehensive, time-intensive learning environment.
- Have a plan. Be ready with a plan that shows who will cover for you while you are attending the conference.
- Build a networking list. Our conferences are an unmatched source for networking, bringing together child life specialists from across the country and around the world. Make note of speakers, exhibitors, or industry representatives you would like to meet or learn new techniques from.
- The value of the Child Life Conference. At the Child Life Conference, you can earn up to 16 PDUs.