Give a WOW!

We invite all individuals in the child life community to Give a WOW! Submissions may include celebration of career milestones, recognize those providing exemplary emotionally safe care, share the successes of programs prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion, show your appreciation towards colleagues and peers who go above and beyond each day in support of each other and children, and more.

Give a WOW!

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Give a Wow - March 2023

Morgan Livingstone

Morgan is an incredibly talented and highly skilled CLS that I feel honored to know. Morgan goes above and beyond in everything she does to foster positive experiences for children, youth and families. She has a contagious positive energy, kind heart, and ambition like no other. Morgan continuously showcases her dedication and passion for Child Life through her leadership in global health, her support to the Retinoblastoma community, her service as a presenter sharing her expertise with other professionals, all in addition to her daily advocacy and hard work in the hospital and within her community practice. Morgan is an exceptional role model and support to others. She is always someone who can be counted on for guidance, collaboration, creative ideas, and cheerleading. Morgan is a true ray of sunshine that deserves to be recognized for the amazing person/clinician that she is and the invaluable impact she has on all that are lucky to know her.
Sarah Nyland

Sarah is one of the most dedicated professionals I have ever worked with. Not only does she go above and beyond to support the patients and families that she works with, but she also shows the same dedication to the staff that she works with, she supports everyone and deserves to be recognized for her hard work.
Rebecca Scobee

Becca is our child life activity coordinator and future child life intern. She has worked SO hard this last year to institute numerous out of bed activities for our patients. She has created a partnership with Spellbound and utilizes their Arise program to encourage out of bed activity and engagement augmented reality. Spellbound’s CEO has contacted us and let us know that according to their data analytics, Nemours Children’s Hospital, Florida is being awarded their “Rising Star” award due to our high engagement levels!! This is all because of Becca and the amazing work she does with patients. She has been such an asset to our team and she truly WOWs us every day!
Cynthia Annabella Cole

Annabella gives excellent care to ALL our patients and families including visitors ) in the Children's Specialty clinics. She is always willing to go the extra mile to make sure the child and family/visitors are comfortable, and the needs are met and addressed. She is well rounded and bilingual which is huge and there is a HUGE need in the Latino community and Annabella is there with a smile on her face and willingness to help ensure the child and family are comfortable and explained in terms they understand.
Hannah Hoover

You are excellent at taking on new challenges and finding the positive in every situation. Good work!
Emmy Minges

You are always taking on new challenges and your latest one of pioneering a brand new program for kids with sensory needs is the best yet! Thanks for your hard work and for always being such a supportive colleague!
Jill Koss

Jill consistently prioritizes DEI in both her clinical program and in her work with ACLP. She has sought out learning opportunities for herself and others and then used that learning to work towards real and measurable change. This change will have an impact on patients, families, and the profession. Thank you Jill for all you do!
Christy Hogan

Christy is an exceptional child life specialist. She has worked tirelessly through numerous ups and downs and continues to provide exceptional care to her patients and families. Christy jumps in and helps anywhere in the hospital and is a remarkable team player. She goes above and beyond each and very day. Christy is such a role model and sounding board for all of the child life team. WOW! She is absolutely fantastic at her job!
Lindsey Ball

Lindsey is going on her second year as a certified child life specialist and thriving in her role! Lindsey demonstrates an incredibly collaborative spirit with families as well as staff which provides optimal environment for quality care. Lindsey is thoughtful and finds ways to incorporate meaningful contributions to those who she is working with as well as along side. Lindsey is often recognized by her team for her ability to provide guidance, support, understanding and empathy that allows her adapt to all situations naturally. Lindsey inspires her coworkers and families to make adjustments and meaningful connections.
Stephanie Steed

30 years with child life!! Woohoo! Thanks Steph for being the best supervisor and mentor!
Lindsay Beckstrom

Lindsay was an amazing child life specialist and friend. She changed our team for the better. We miss you Lindsay!
Alivia Evans

Alivia is a great example of someone who sees a problem and immediately resolves it. Thanks Alivia for all of your hard work for our team.
Paige Cave

You are such a calm and reassuring presence for patients and families. Thank you for your advocacy and for changing our team for the better.
Mariah Martin

Thanks Mariah for always being so excited and enthusiastic about child life. You help make sure we are accessing the latest resources and we really appreciate it!
Amy Rapien

Amy is a great advocate for patient and families. She is always educating staff regarding patient and family centered care. Great work Amy!
Kendall Furniss-Smedley

Thanks Kendall for always keeping Intermountain Health's child life team up-to-date on the latest DEI initiatives!
Katie Taylor

Katie is an exceptional child life specialist and leader. She is continuously thinking outside the box and works tirelessly to support fellow child life specialists and caregivers. She continues to inspire me daily and makes me excited for the future of our profession.
SickKids Child Life Team

I would like to acknowledge our SickKids child life team as a whole. They are so great at collaborating across a very large hospital and working together to make sure that all of the needs of our patients and their families are met. They go above and beyond to have each other backs and support one another when someone needs assistance and I am wowed each and every day at the service they provide, even when we are swamped and stretched beyond our capacity. I believe that the smallest wins should be cheered on and the work they do and they way they do it every day deserves to be cheered!!!!
Debbie Wagers

Debbie has spent her entire career providing care that meets families where they are at with the upmost compassion. She has created innovation throughout her career through collaboration. Child life has been fortunate to have her and she deserves a WOW for her many contributions.
Meredith Norton

Meredith is always thinking of what is best for others and looking for ways to serve others well! She is thoughtful, intentional, and compassionate in all she does, whether it is serving patients and families or in her new role as a manager. She is committed to making sure that others feel heard, cared for, and loved. The child life team, patients, families, and clinical staff in Memphis are all better because she is there!
Graham Sippel

Graham is in her first year as a Certified Child Life Specialist and is thriving in her role! She is passionate and exuberant in all that she does, while always thinking of innovative ways to care for and celebrate the patients and families that she serves. Graham has brought a joy and camaraderie to our team that has changed us for the better. I am thankful to know Graham and have her as a part of our team!
Jessica Randall

After returning to the field of child life after a hiatus to raise your beautiful family it's like you never left! You jumped right back into providing exceptional care and instantly became a respected member of our child life team.
Molly Donnelly

You are a strong advocate for best practice and always treat patient and families with the utmost compassion. You have developed invaluable resources for the child life department to support all individuals served.
Heather Murphy

You go above and beyond to provide quality care to families that need a touch of child life the most. Your development of a coping kit to support parents during their NICU journey has helped so many and added great value to the NICU child life role.
Christie Shaw

Christie-you consistently go above and beyond for our department. Your continued advocacy and persistence has made our CompassionNet team stronger. We are able to help families through unimaginably difficult times with your supportive guidance and support. We appreciate you and are always cheering for you!
Ashlee Olson

Ashlee joined our team 5 years ago to start child life services in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. During the 5 years that she's been here, she has cemented herself as an valued member of the NICU medical team in so many ways! She spearheads developmental rounds, manages all volunteers on 3 units, has created events and celebrations for patients and families, and has instituted child life engagement with all eye exams in these area. She continually covers 3 units, with upwards of 90 patients, and also volunteers to support the rest of the child life team by covering fluroscopy and overflow units! Ashlee is a tremendous team member as well as a compassionate and respectful practitioner! It is an honor to work alongside her everyday!
Twila Perkinson

I wanted to reach out to you and say a sincere thank you for making Bennett feel so comfortable during his infusion this last Friday. This was his second infusion and it went so much better than the first because you stopped in and gave him games/crafts to occupy his time. He said the next day “Twila was so nice to stop by and give me the gift bag”. You are truly amazing at what you do.
Emily Montag

Emily! I miss working with you in pediatric rehab. You are so creative and intentional in all of your interventions with patients with brain injuries and spinal cord injuries. You make every day fun for your patients and you prioritize their emotional health and autonomy in every way that you support them. You are also an amazing family support, leading fun sibling sessions and making customized social stories. Congrats on the recent webinar for collaboration with the interdisciplinary team for self-cathing! I am grateful the field has a child life specialist like you and can't wait to see how you'll continue to contribute to our profession throughout your career!
Madie Moore

Madie, I am so grateful to work with you. You jumped right into the ED role and have provided incredible support and comfort to patients and families in their darkest and scariest moments. You are always willing to help where it's needed in the ED or for our child life team and it's evident that you have also made great connections with staff. Thank you for advocating for the emotional health of our patients in the chaos and thinking creatively to build relationships and make positive change at our hospital!
Samantha Childs

Sam, thank you for being an incredible colleague and friend! You oriented me in my first job to the overwhelming task of providing child life coverage to 43 specialty clinics. You sat with me on the playroom floor brainstorming creative interventions for our patients, ways to engage our staff, and provided support when things were tough. I watched you make strong connections with your patients with spinal cord injuries and celebrated with you when they made huge strides in their coping with new routines, therapy, medicine, equipment, and the social aspect of engaging with their family and friends. You collaborate well with social work, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and doctors to provide support as patients adjust to life after their injuries. And on top of all of that, you also saw a need in our community to fill the gaps and started a private practice!! You are creative, resourceful, resilient, fun, and collaborative. WOW, you rock!
Cory Keffer

Cory, I miss working with you in the outpatient clinics. I loved watching your ability to match the energy of our patients and provide a calm, reassuring presence or a silly, fun distraction during patient's clinic visits. I loved brainstorming new ways to provide preparation and education for procedures for our research patients. I also loved collaborating with you to create our vaccine clinic coping plan and advocating for our patients with Autism and various sensory needs. I couldn't have had a better partner to navigate the challenges and celebrate the victories with. Thank you for your listening ear and encouragement every day during that time. You are such a team player and always full of amazing ideas. I am so happy for you in your current role supporting kids & teens in the inpatient setting and the ED. They are beyond lucky to have you!
Paige Reichsteiner

Paige consistency shows up for the children, families and teams she works with. Paige has a sound and comprehensive developmental foundation and is passionate about educating others about the role of Child Life. demonstrating and advocating to the impact on the lives of children and families. .
Laurel Johnson

This past year Laurel was switched from her home base unit in the ER to provide child life support in prep-op and CCCU. While this wasn't an easy change, she has gone above and beyond to advance the role and perception of child life in those units to the point where she was recently asked to provide education sessions to all cardiac outpatient clinics in central Florida on how to better meet the psychosocial needs of cardiac patients.
Mentorship Committee

I would like to recognize the mentorship committee on their hard work in providing valued support to members who enroll in the mentorship program. They spend exhausted hours pairing up mentors with mentees to ensure support and guidance is offered. Not only are they hard at work in supporting all who are in this program, they also coordinate valued in-service's that help inspire and create conversations about the work that we do. Thank you to those that lead and volunteer their time to ensure this valued program exists for our profession.
Tiffany Shevchik

Tiffany’s passion for helping others goes beyond he walls of her work environment. Tiffany saw that there was a need in supporting bereaved children and youth and a started a nonprofit foundation named Beyond the Pappus. This foundation not only grants wishes but helps families cope with the death of an immediate family member physically, socially, emotionally, educationally, and/or spiritually. In addition to her work with bereaved youth she continues to be an advocate for programs such as Animal Assisted Interventions AAI and Beads of Courage. She has continued her 20+ year career in Child Life, now working with children with special needs and AAI programming. She has helped many children and families so far through the foundation and her work and continues to do so!
Jennifer Gagne

Jen provides procedural support and education to children receiving radiologic care in our organization. She is in constant motion daily moving from MRI to Ultrasound to CT Scan! Jen is greatly appreciated for her tech savviness, and takes almost complete responsibility for ordering supplies for all areas served by our child life team.
Jennifer Eddy

Jenny works in our pediatric procedural prep area-the Comfort Zone providing education and procedural support to patients and families coming in for OP procedures. Everything Jenny does, she does with the DEI lens-ensuring that the care she and her team provides is done with respect to DEI. Jenny is exceptional at working with children who are neurodiverse and has worked tirelessly to educate her team to ensure these children receive the best possible care.
Jessica Rabidoux

Jess is the rock our Child Life department was built on! She was the first CCLS in our organization, and has been with us for 23 years. We are so grateful for the amazing care she provides to the children in our inpatient unit and the PICU.
Ashley Bain

Ashley truly goes above and beyond, giving her heart and soul to the practice of Child Life. She gives her full attention to not only her patients but her co-workers, volunteers who serve under her and the nurses on her unit. She does all of this without asking for any recognition but deserves to know her efforts are noticed and fully appreciated by those who work with her.
Bri Wagner

Bri is such an asset to our child life team! As our only float specialist, she meets various (potentially) unmet support needs throughout our hospital. She is always more than willing to lend a helping hand to her colleagues and strives to enhance our program and the services we offer. Her passion, drive, and positive attitude make our team better.
Valerie Chance

Happy 18th Anniversary Valerie! You are incredibly committed to the overall well-being of kids and families in the health care environment! Thank you for playing, educating, supporting, and caring for countless amounts of kids throughout your career! The impact you make every day makes a HUGE difference in the lives of so many! Thank you!
Kristin Suto

Kristin has been in the field for over ten years and her work ethic has never skipped a beat. Her creative mind is always working on a project. While working in the hospital, Kristin’s patients and families would continue to reach out and thank her for her immense kindness while hospitalized. Kristin now primarily works with special needs children through an Animal Assisted Intervention program and with bereaved children and youth through Beyond the Pappus, a non-profit organization. I am grateful to have worked alongside such a caring individual as Kristin.
Nicole Albert

I met Nicole at the 2022 ACLP Conference and was so impressed to learn about her work as a one person program at a hospital in Beaumont Texas. As a CCLS at a large hospital with a large department, I was blown away hearing from Nicole about the work she does within her facility. It is very clear that Nicole is a strong asset to this program and seamlessly provides support hospital wide while managing all of the organizational tasks inherit to small and one person programs. Additionally, Nicole has created engaging social media content educating the public about child life and increasing interest in the profession. Great work Nicole!

Give a Wow - March 2023

Child Life Profession