Child Life on Call Mobile Application
Children and families across the globe confront a wide variety of stressful and potentially traumatic events that may overwhelm their ability to cope. Some stressful events may include a chronic illness diagnosis, hospitalization, invasive medical procedure, or the death of a loved one. Parents may feel unsure of their ability to help their children to successfully understand and manage these experiences. Certified Child Life Specialists (CCLS) are trained professionals with expertise in helping children and families to understand their child’s illness, response to medical treatments, and support caregiving roles by promoting parent-child play sessions and sharing strategies for comforting or coaching their children (AAP, 2021). More broadly, CCLS collaborate with the entire interdisciplinary healthcare team to promote coping, enhance optimal development and well-being, and overall healthcare experience for children and families.
Research has shown that child life services are associated with improved quality, outcomes, and patient and family experiences (AAP, 2021). For example, an important element of a child life program is preparing children for surgery. A systematic review of preparation effectiveness concluded that children who were psychologically prepared for surgery experienced fewer negative symptoms than children who did not receive formal preparation (Koller, 2009). Some findings included a decrease in posttraumatic stress, lower levels of fear and anxiety, increased cooperative behaviors, and better long-term coping and adjustment to future medical experiences (Koller, 2009). Research has also evaluated child life programs, revealing that child life interventions resulted in less emotional distress, better overall coping during hospital stays, a better understanding of procedures, a more positive physical recovery, and enhanced posthospital adjustment for children (Wolfer, 1988). Overall, child life services and interventions have been documented to enhance children’s welfare during the challenging hospital experience.
Unfortunately, CCLS services only see about one third of families that seek care in children’s hospitals due to a variety of reasons including non-clinical responsibilities, staffing issues, high patient ratios, little to no coverage on nights and weekends, and more. CCLS rarely provide services prior to a patient’s planned admission and never provide post-discharge support unless the patient is readmitted while a CCLS is on shift. This lack of access to child life services leaves many families left without all of the benefits that child life specialists provide. In addition, the profession lacks digital tools to support their efforts in the hospital and community setting to provide them with evidenced-based and on-demand resources, patient engagement tools which have the opportunity to make the CCLS more efficient at work. Furthermore, children with chronic illness like asthma or diabetes who would benefit from psychosocial support are never exposed to child life services if their treatment is managed by private practices.
We believe this gap in services can be mitigated with the implementation of the Child Life On Call (CLOC) mobile application for children and families in the hospital and community settings. This application was created over 2 years by CCLS with combined experience of over 50 years of clinical work, using evidence-based and trauma-informed resources designed specifically for parents to use as a resource, with the goal of helping parents to feel fully involved in their child’s care and empowered to make confident and informed decisions about their health. On this mobile application, parents have 24/7 access to learn specific ways to advocate for their child, coping plans to use with their child, guided meditations, and countless child life resources about ways to support children through challenging experiences. While we believe that a one-to-one support from a CCLS is still the most valuable resource, this mobile application can empower parents to continue confidently and competently supporting their child beyond hospitalization by providing access to a CCLS and invaluable resources and education specific to their child’s diagnosis and treatment.
The target population for this pilot project will be children and families who have received child life services in the hospital setting. These individuals will be provided information about the Child Life On Call application following their in-person services with a certified child life specialist (CCLS) in the hospital. This mobile application will allow CCLS to extend services beyond the short timeframe they are allotted with each patient due to high patient ratios and limited staffing.
We anticipate the use of the mobile application will help to empower parents to continue confidently and competently supporting their child beyond hospitalization by providing access to CCLS resources and education specific to their child’s diagnosis and treatment. Furthermore, we believe the equitable access of this application also provides a solution to underserved populations.
Katie Taylor, the founder of Child Life on Call, spent over 2 years creating this application with the support of a team of CCLS with combined experience of over 50 years of clinical work. Additionally, application was developed by the use of evidence-based and trauma-informed resources designed specifically for parents to use as a resource, with the goal of helping parents to feel fully involved in their child’s care and empowered to make confident and informed decisions about their health. Prior to Katie devoting time to the development of the mobile application, she spent 10+ years as a certified child life specialist working in the hospital setting with children and families. It was also through these experiences that she developed an understanding of what services could be expanded upon to better serve the patients and families she was supporting.
The rest of the team members, Katie Walker and Belinda Hammond, have experience as certified child life specialists working in hospital, in addition to, program evaluation research. These combination of skills will support the solution, as we hope to use systematic research endeavors to determine how and if the mobile application supports children and families beyond hospitalization.
- Build fundamental, resilient, and people-centered health infrastructure that makes essential services, equipment, and medicines more accessible and affordable for communities that are currently underserved;
- Pilot
This project is seeking financial support to better understand the outcomes associated with the implementation of the Child Life On Call mobile application in pediatric hospitals and community settings for parents of hospitalized children.
This project is seeking cultural and technical support. A barrier to the Child Life On Call mobile application is that it is only available in English and to reach underserved populations, translatable content is necessary.
- Monitoring & Evaluation (e.g. collecting/using data, measuring impact)
Assistant Professor
Associate Director, Grant and Research Development