Child Life Specialist, Minor

Coping with illness, injury, and treatment is often challenging and stressful for children, adolescents, and their families. Certified Child Life Specialists provide therapeutic play, preparation for procedure, and education that reduce fear, anxiety, pain, and suffering for patients and their families. These child life services result in cost savings, including reduced length of stay, decreased sedation needs, and improved family satisfaction and ratings of overall experience. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has endorsed the important role of the Certified Child Life Specialist, and U.S. News & World Report Child Life Specialists are healthcare professionals who help children and families navigate the process of illness, injury, disability, trauma, or hospitalization. They are an integral part of the health care team, as they provide additional support resources to children and families to help process the often stressful situation of an illness or injury.

The Child Life Specialist Program at Holy Family is one of the only programs in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York to offer a curriculum that offers pre-approved courses from the Association of Child Life Professionals (ACLP). This interdisciplinary program draws on existing courses throughout fields such as Philosophy, Psychology, Biology, and Education, and many of the electives and required courses also fall into the required general education core, making the Child Life Specialist program a great complement to existing coursework.

Program Details

The minor will provide students with a comprehensive foundation of course work related to the growth and development of healthy and hospitalized children and adolescents.