Advanced Child Life Practice Track
When a Caregiver is Terminally Ill: Helping Families Navigate End-of-Life Conversations – Mackenize Liberta, MA, CCLS, GC-C
This presentation explores how to support adult patients with terminal illness in discussing death and dying with their children. It highlights the challenges care teams face in guiding these conversations and emphasizes the importance of developmentally appropriate communication. Participants will learn practical strategies and gain tools to help families navigate these difficult discussions with greater confidence and support
Unmasking the Mysteries: How to Talk with Children about What Happens at a Funeral Home – Becky Lomaka, MA, CT, FT
Communicate a summary of the options, choices and decisions client families will face when making funeral or other memorial arrangements, including an understanding of the basics of cremation, embalming, and other procedures related to end-of-life care. Provide practical tools for Child Life Specialists when talk with children about what happens at a funeral home.
Addressing Palliative and End-of-Life Disparities for Hispanic, Spanish-Speaking Children with Cancer – Dr. Katie Gradick, MD, MHS
Hispanic, particularly Spanish-preferring, families of children with poor prognosis cancers report disparities compared with non-Hispanic families, including inconsistent interpreter use, inappropriate use of bilingual children as interpreters, confusion about prognosis and treatment, perceived discrimination, and inadequate end of life anticipatory guidance. This session presents qualitative data from families about their experiences at a tertiary children’s hospital in the Intermountain west, and outlines opportunities for addressing these disparities.
Don’t Forget About Us: Father’s Experience in Caring for Children with Life-Limiting Diagnoses and Interventions to Ensure Involvement. – Thuy Uyen Vo, MSW, LSW & Scott Adair Cox, MSW, LCSW, Doctoral Student, ELNEC Trainer, EMDR and CCTP II Trained, Grief Trained, RBT Trained, Triple P and Nurturing Families Trained.
Fathers' involvement in their child's medical journey is influenced by numerous expectations and responsibilities. These variables impact their physical and emotional availability when caring for a child diagnosed with a life-limited condition. This presentation will provide a literature review on father's role and experience caring for children involved in hospice and palliative care. This presentation will also provide strategies to understand the father's needs, encourage their involvement in their child's medical journey, and discuss interventions to support their emotional needs through this process.
Essential Skills for Interdisciplinary Team Track
The Long Goodbye: Accompanying Children and Families Through the Many Layers of Loss Before and After a Loved One’s Death. – Kelsi Hildreth-Wilson, MS, CCLS & Tessa Whitten, CCLS
Children experiencing the serious illness or death of a loved one often face profound emotional and developmental challenges. When these experiences occur in adult medical settings, families may have limited access to child-specific psychosocial support, leaving caregivers uncertain about how best to help their children cope. This presentation, Collaborating with Caregivers to Support Children through a Loved One’s Serious Illness or Death, highlights the role of Certified Child Life Specialists (CCLS) in bridging this gap through developmentally appropriate education, emotional support, and grief interventions for children across all stages of the illness and bereavement process.
Children’s Books: Support for the Entire Family – Laura Camerona, CCLS
Children and families don’t just need support while they are in the hospital, and so, giving caregivers the vocabulary and the tools to have important conversations with their child is important. Caregivers have different levels of comfort with hard conversations and don’t have the time or mental capacity to memorize all of the dos and the don’ts. This presentation will help professionals see the benefits of using the simple language available in children’s books, expose them to a growing world of children’s literature, and share some simple tools to help a CCLS create customized books for families.
Drawing the Curtain: An Integrative Framework for Culturally Conscious Psychosocial Assessment of Children Experiencing Parent Loss. – Dr. Kia Ferrer, PhD, MS, CCLS, GC-C
This presentation will focus on action-based strategies for incorporating culturally conscious assessment for children of adult patients in palliative and hospice care, with a specific emphasis on engaging historically minoritized families in meaningful conversations about coping mechanisms, emotional well-being, and social support systems. The session will explore how healthcare providers can move beyond deficit perspectives and shift toward cultural consciousness, mitigating implicit bias and negative stereotypes, and facilitating family-centered discussions that address the unique circumstances influencing the children’s psychological and emotional health.
Put on Your Rainboots: Including and Supporting Children Through Serious Illness, Death, Dying, and Grief. – Shaindy Alexander, MSc, CCLS
When children and teens face illness or challenging times, their emotions can shift rapidly moving from joy to sadness, anger to calm, and everything in between. Much like jumping through puddles, they may leap from one emotional state to another in a matter of moments. In this session, we’ll explore the importance of meeting them where they are—joining them in their emotional “puddles”—to better understand their needs and provide meaningful, responsive support. Together, we’ll reflect on how to stay present, flexible, and compassionate as we walk alongside them through their journey.