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As current/future CLS', we recognize the impact a medical diagnosis has on family stress, so lets focus on the resilience component. How can child life impact family resiliency? How do you hope to impact family resiliency? Provide an example of either a support you hope to implement or a gap in service that could be implemented that not only recognizes the stress of a medical diagnosis, better supports resiliency in some meaningful way.
Child life specialists can significantly impact family resiliency by providing targeted support that helps families cope with the stress of a medical diagnosis. Resiliency is not just about bouncing back but about adapting and growing stronger through adversity. Child life interventions are designed to empower families by promoting effective communication, a sense of control, and emotional expression.
Child life specialists support family resiliency in several key ways:
Providing a Sense of Normalcy: Specialists help establish routines and opportunities for play, learning, and self-expression, which can reduce the feeling that a medical environment has taken over a family's life.
Empowering Communication: Child life professionals can help parents and siblings understand complex medical information and teach them how to communicate it to the patient in a developmentally appropriate way. This open dialogue prevents misinformation and fear, strengthening family bonds.
Promoting Coping Skills: Through therapeutic play and expressive arts, child life helps children and their siblings find healthy ways to express their fears, anger, and sadness. They also teach parents specific strategies to support their child's coping efforts.
Advocating for the Family: Specialists serve as advocates, ensuring that the healthcare team considers the family's psychosocial needs and preferences, which helps the family feel heard and respected in a system that can often feel overwhelming.
My goal is to positively impact family resiliency by implementing a service that addresses a common gap in care: support for siblings of pediatric patients undergoing long-term treatment. Siblings often experience feelings of neglect, jealousy, guilt, and anxiety, yet their emotional needs are frequently overlooked. This unaddressed stress can create significant family friction and hinder the family's collective ability to cope.
The support I hope to implement is a structured Sibling Support Program that uses group sessions and individual check-ins. This program would provide a safe space for siblings to connect with others who are facing similar challenges. The program would include:
Therapeutic Play and Art: Activities designed to help siblings express complex emotions and fears related to their brother's or sister's illness.
Education: Developmentally appropriate information about their sibling's diagnosis and treatment, demystifying the hospital environment and correcting any misconceptions.
Coping Strategy Workshops: Teaching siblings specific relaxation techniques and problem-solving skills to manage their stress and anxiety.
Family Sessions: Occasional sessions that bring the entire family together to practice new communication skills and reinforce a shared understanding of their collective journey.