Child Life: Helping Children Cope

Child life at Arnold Palmer Medical Center (APMC) is made up of a team of professionally Certified Child Life Specialists and child life assistants who strive to mitigate the fear and mystery of a healthcare experience for children, teens, and families. They focus on building therapeutic relationships and providing supportive interactions for the purpose of helping these young patients and their siblings understand and cope with hospitalization and medical treatment.

The child life team also coordinates a wide-range of events for children who are at APMC for inpatient or outpatient care, like a summer bar-b-que, visits from the Orlando City Soccer Club, yoga classes and pet therapy, to name a few. These activities help to improve the patient and family experience by offering something that’s fun, engaging and a break from their medical routine.

“My favorite part of the job is when a patient is encouraged to attend an event that they don’t think would interest them, but they show up anyway. More often than not, we see that after a few minutes they don’t want to leave,” said Events Coordinator, Amanda Harris (pictured above, left). “It is so rewarding to see them having fun and being kids despite their current situations.” 

Child Life services are not billable, and are therefore reliant on charitable contributions from the community to support this vital program for patients and there families. Read more about how Child Life offers Play, Preparation and Education at the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children Illuminate Blog here.