Upcoming Speaker Presentations

This keynote introduces Child Life Specialists to the foundations of research, quality improvement (QI), and evidence-based practice (EBP), highlighting how each approach strengthens pediatric care and advances the profession. Participants will learn to distinguish among these methodologies, identify meaningful clinical questions, and use the PICOT framework to develop focused research ideas. The session also explores common research methods, outlines the process of conducting and disseminating scholarly work, and highlights resources, collaborations, and practical strategies that support successful project development. Attendees will leave equipped to transform clinical curiosity into evidence-informed action that improves outcomes for children and families.

Providing end-of-life care is a delicate balance between giving to others and caring for oneself. Some interventions can appropriately serve both the patient and the care provider, while others may require thoughtful recalibration. This presentation explores how actions driven by selfless intentions can also reflect personal motivations and the care provider’s wish for closure. Rather than focusing on judgment or obligation, it examines the intersection of personal fulfillment, compassion, and connection. By reflecting on these dynamics, the discussion highlights how meaningful and thoughtful engagement in end-of-life care can shape experiences for all involved.

In this workshop, participants will learn how to facilitate a narrative-based intervention designed to support children facing a loved one’s serious illness or end of life. Through didactic learning and case examples, participants will learn how to partner with caregivers to create a personalized storybook for a child who is facing serious illness and end-of-life. Attendees will learn the theoretical foundations, step-by-step process, and practical applications of story creation as well as how it can be integrated into ongoing family-centered care.

Child Life interventions have been effective and associated with positive emotional and behavioral outcomes. This study will provide research on the interaction between the biological, psychological somatic systems and child life services.

Legacy building is often a term used interchangeably with end-of-life interventions in pediatrics. Purposeful interventions by multidisciplinary staff are often implemented at the end of life to serve as keepsakes for families, including hand or footprints, plaster castings, heartbeat recordings, and more. While these items can be impactful at the end of life, research shows that legacy extends beyond these physical items created at the end of a child’s life and that legacy work is crucial regardless of a child’s prognosis. Jones et al (2023) report families “define legacy primarily as the child’s intangible qualities, shared experiences, and enduring impacts on the family and community.” Additionally, child life specialist Jessika Boles (2014) describes legacy “a passing of self, stories, belongings from one to another, a meaning-making process and a vehicle for being remembered.” Acknowledgement and celebration of special events and treatment milestones remind children and their families that their medical team recognizes and treats their whole selves, not just their disease, and serves to create memories, recognize resilience, and instill hope. Opportunities for memories including children and their families “will assure the child that they will be remembered after their death, which is especially important for children with terminal illness,” contributing to the child’s legacy (Cahalan, 2022). Our team saw an opportunity to enhance care for children facing serious illnesses, regardless of prognosis, by creating individualized legacy projects that are reflective of a broader definition of legacy – projects that extend beyond the handprint to encompass the true legacy of a pediatric patient and their family. Through a hospital-based grant, the psychosocial team collaborated to create legacy-building opportunities for patients and families throughout their healthcare encounters. The goal for this presentation is to highlight specific projects the team facilitated under this larger umbrella of legacy building, the impact on patients and families, and the impact on staff – not only to spark creative ideas for other teams but also to highlight the impact of legacy work on the healthcare professionals who care for these patients.

Hospitals all throughout the country pride themselves on delivering “family-centered care,” but what does that really look like in practice? In a study of parent perspectives of end-of-life care in an ICU, parents identified 6 priorities, with the first being honest and complete communication between the medical team and family (Meyer et al., 2006). Following covid, researchers also found that nurses have an increased sense of wanting to provide a “good death” and most importantly, providing “a less technical environment” (Stanzl & Scammell, 2022). With family-centered care in mind, this presentation will focus on the development and implementation of a family-centered legacy building program for patients at the end of life in a pediatric ICU. A child life specialist in the cardiac ICU partnered with a nurse practitioner from the palliative care team to develop and implement a program called 3 Wishes. The program was adapted from an adult intensive care unit at UCLA medical center (Vanstone et al., 2019). This program provides education and supplies to all ICU staff to ensure that each patient who is nearing end of life receives 3 wishes—1 from each of 3 categories. The categories were as follows: 1. Physical mementos, 2. Comfortable environment, and 3. Friends and family visitation. This program was created with the goal of allowing patients, their families, and staff to better partner at the end of life. The presentation will focus on the process of development, implementation, and results for said program including the successes and challenges along the way.

Elise’s Legacy Library is a free online resource designed to support children and families facing medical treatment through mindfulness, relaxation, and coping tools. Created by members of the child life department in response to a palliative care patient’s wish, it offers developmentally appropriate concepts like guided imagery, progressive muscle relaxation, and music-assisted relaxation. This session introduces the library’s purpose, development, and practical use in clinical settings. Attendees will explore its features, including multilingual access and adaptability, and learn how to integrate it into interdisciplinary care to support emotional regulation, pain management, and grief

This presentation will provide organizations from hospitals to community-based programs for ways to reframe services provided to assure participants of all abilities can benefit and even thrive during difficult life experiences. Resources will be provided as well as best practices so that you can review and adjust programming to meet the needs of everyone.

This presentation will seek to demystify ritual through expanding the understanding of “sacred” and honoring the vocation of all practitioners. Empower caregivers (in all settings) to engage in family-centered care to create and provide meaning-making rituals. We will also provide a basic tool kit for ritual forming, family engagement, and honoring the sacred.

Serious illness and bereavement can have significant emotional, social, and developmental impacts on siblings, often leaving them with feelings of grief, isolation, anxiety, and unmet support needs. Effective, evidence-informed care recognizes siblings as an essential part of the family system by including them in conversations, validating their experiences, and connecting them with school, family, and community resources. Healthcare providers and caregivers can further support healthy adjustment by using bibliotherapy and guided storytelling interventions, which help siblings process loss, normalize complex emotions, build resilience, and develop positive coping skills throughout the grief journey.