A hospital stay or outpatient procedure is a scary prospect for a child (and adults, too). Mission's Child Life specialists work to help ease fears and anxieties that often occur before and during a hospital stay. These fears may cause many emotions and negative behaviors for the child, including stress, becoming withdrawn, and reverting to younger behavior and may affect the entire family.
At Mission Children's Hospital, our Child Life program helps children and families cope with questions, fears and, concerns in an effort to make a hospital visit or procedure a better experience.
Services Offered
As the only Child Life program in Western North Carolina, our goal is to ease the child's concerns and provide a more comfortable hospital experience by helping the child prepare for the situation they face. Whether it is role-playing with a favorite doll or a family activity like story time or movie night, we use a number of techniques to help children and their families cope with and understand hospitalization and illness, including:
- Play
- Education
- Equipment and procedure demonstrations
- Step-by-step explanations of what to expect during a procedure
- Pleasant activities used to distract the child during a procedure
- Coping skills
- Support groups
- Surgery tours
- Techniques to encourage and reward and good behaviors
- Communication
These techniques encourage children to get involved in their own care, which in turn can encourage cooperation and can even result in shorter hospital stays and a reduced need to sedate the child.
Child Life Staff
The Child Life program has a number of child development specialists on staff who provide support to children during events related to diagnosis, hospitalization and surgery. All have a minimum four-year college degree related to child development and child life, and are trained in psychology, family intervention or child development.
Community Involvement
The Child Life program gets involved in programs throughout the community to promote teaching prior to hospitalization. We also have opportunities for community members to get involved through donating, volunteering and providing toys, craft kits, special programs and entertainment. In addition we have an internship and practicum program each semester where students can participate in and learn about the Child Life field.
Contact Information
Referrals are not required. You may simply contact Child Life services by calling the Reuter Outpatient Center at 828-213-1740. A Child Life staff member can discuss ways to help when your child is coming in for an outpatient visit, hospitalization, surgery or if you have general questions about hospitalization.
