We are recruiting for a mission-driven Lead Child Life Specialist to join our team!
We're with you for life’s journey. At Denver Health, purpose isn’t just something we believe in—it’s something we live every day, for life’s journey.
Our Values Respect | Belonging | Accountability | Transparency Department Child Life Program Job Summary The Lead Child Life Specialist is a key member of the pediatric healthcare team and Child Life program. The Lead Specialist, under minimal supervision, has shared accountability for achieving the programs mission, vision, and objectives.
The Lead Specialist works in a health care setting focusing on the emotional and developmental needs of children and their families. The Lead Specialist reduces stress associated with the health care experience and enables a child and their family to cope by providing play experiences, presenting medical information in a way that children can understand, and encouraging family involvement in the child's medical care.
The Lead Specialist also serves as a mentor and leader to other child life specialists, students, and interdisciplinary teams. The Lead Specialist routinely collaborates with the Manager and interdisciplinary teams to develop and implement programs that enhance both the Child Life program and patient and family experience. The Lead Specialist will also oversee the Child Life Student & Volunteer programs.
Work Schedule: Tuesday - Saturday, 8am - 4:30 pm.
Essential Functions Clinical Interventions: Develops a plan of care including interventions to address the needs of the child and family. Family and sibling support: Utilizing a family-centered care approach to ensure the patient and family’s individual, cultural, and social needs are met and to provide developmentally appropriate education and support to other children in the family to help them cope with a family member in the hospital. Preparation and procedural support: Provides psychological preparation to children prior to undergoing medical procedures using expressive/medical play and other techniques to minimize stress or fears related to medical procedures. Developmental/Therapeutic play: Uses normative and/or therapeutic play opportunities to encourage expression of feelings, process difficult events, explore positive coping skills, promote a sense of mastery and understanding of health care experiences, and to minimize stress associated with health care experiences. ▪ Recognizes the developmental issues specifically related to healthcare experiences.
Diagnosis education: Utilizing developmentally appropriate language to explain a new diagnosis, injury, illness, or death. Grief support: Providing memory making and legacy building items, developmentally appropriate education and resources for families, and facilitating bedside visits. Assessment Assessing the patient’s current developmental level and providing interventions to enhance development. Completing Psychosocial Risk Assessment in Pediatrics to evaluate and mitigate pediatric medical traumatic stress. Charting Documents services in patient chart. Updates documentation as care plans change. (50%)
Communication: Monitors the child’s reaction to hospitalization and provides the staff with timely information to supplement the health care services to the child. Consults with family and staff to ensure clear communication and that the best interests of the patient are consistently met. Provides ongoing education regarding the scope of child life services, the impact of health care on development, providing developmentally appropriate and emotionally safe medical care, and professional boundaries. (10%)
Program Management: Reviews and assists with invoices for equipment, supplies and other resources. Manages an additional project of significance that contributes to the Child Life program for the foreseeable future. Devises strategies and methods to assure implementation of the project goals and objectives are achieved. Assist in inspiring, developing, implementing, assessing, refining, and enhancing the departments’ continuous process improvement strategy and reporting applications and capabilities, including the build out of robust and standard work systems that monitor quality, costs, key trends, program tracking, and strategic, operational, and financial performance. Enforces policies and procedures ensuring regulatory compliance. Supervision Assists with regulatory reviews and preparation for review by reviewing competencies. Provides clinical supervision to other team members, providing ongoing communication, observations, and support. (10%)
Project Management & Quality Improvement: Implements strategic plans to achieve maximum department output and contribution to Denver Health strategy. Implementing initiatives and projects. This may involve assisting in developing project plans, monitoring progress toward on-time completion, and updates for key metrics and milestones. Evaluates and modifies the frameworks and methods to evaluate project success. Consistently reviews industry best practices to identify improvement opportunities and implements industry best practices as needed. Assists in the review and effectiveness of improvement initiatives. (10%)
Supply & Event Management: Selects and maintains program materials related to the Child Life role including but not limited to both developmental & normative toys/items, distraction items, and technology. Assists in community events with PR & marketing. Organization of donations in collaboration with foundation team. (10%)
Volunteers/Student Management: Supervises volunteers, Child Life students and others participating in the Child Life Program. (10%)
Education Bachelor's Degree required. Graduate Degree preferred. Work Experience At least 7 years of experience as a Child Life specialist, with a strong background in pediatric healthcare required. Licenses CCLS-Certified Child Life Specialist - ACLP - Association of Child Life Professionals required. BLS-Basic Life Support (BLS/CPR) - AHA - American Heart Association required. Knowledge, Skills and Abilities Active Listening — Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times. Administration and Management — Advance knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, leadership technique, and coordination of people and resources. Analyzing Data— Identifying the underlying principles, reasons, or facts of information by breaking down or data into separate parts. Child Life— Significant knowledge and expertise of normal human growth and development. With advance skill set to provide clinical child life interventions to decrease medical trauma/stressors within a medical setting. Coaching and Developing Others — Identifying the developmental needs of others and coaching, mentoring, or otherwise helping others to improve their knowledge or skills. Communicating — Communicating effectively orally and in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience, express or exchange ideas by verbal communications. Consultation and Advice to Others — Providing guidance and expert advice to management or other groups on technical, systems-, or process-related topics. Critical Thinking — Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems. Customer Service — Expert knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction. 
