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Child Life Specialists: The Unsung Heroes of Pediatric Care with Katie Taylor

• Catia Hernandez Holm

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Katie Taylor opens our eyes to the transformative role of child life specialists - healthcare professionals who use play, preparation, and child-friendly language to turn potentially traumatic medical experiences into manageable, even empowering ones for children and families.

With over 15 years of experience as a certified child life specialist and as CEO of Child Life On Call, Katie shares how these professionals serve as essential bridges between medical teams and families. From describing IVs as "tiny Barbie straws" to creating playful preparation for anesthesia, these specialists translate complex medical experiences into language children can understand.

Whether you're a parent preparing a child for a medical procedure or someone interested in how healthcare can become more nuanced, this conversation will forever change how you think about supporting children through medical experiences. 

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Show Guest

Katie Taylor, CCLS, CEO & Founder, Child Life On Call

Katie Taylor is the co-founder and CEO of Child Life On Call, a digital platform revolutionizing pediatric healthcare by putting parents at the center of the medical journey. With over 15 years of experience as a certified child life specialist, Katie has made significant contributions to the field of child life and the families she’s served with over a decade of working at the bedside. She is an accomplished author, engaging child life and entrepreneurship speaker, and the Child Life On Call Podcast host. Katie's work emphasizes the vital role of child life services in supporting caregivers and enhancing children's medical journeys through empowering parents.

Connect with Katie here:

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Show hosted by:

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Supervised by Susan Gonzales, LMFT-S, LPC-S


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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Couch Time with Cat, your safe place for real conversation and a gentle check-in. Kwvh presents Couch Time with Cat. Hi, I'm Cat, trauma therapist, coach, tedx speaker, best-selling author and your host here on Couch Time with Cat. I've spent over a decade walking alongside people through the real, raw and sacred work of becoming whole again through the real, raw and sacred work of becoming whole again. Couch Time with Cat.

Speaker 1:

Mental Wellness with a Friendly Voice is where we have conversations that are equal parts science and soul. This is where we get honest about anxiety, grief, burnout, relationships and the brave everyday work of healing. You don't have to have it all figured out to belong here. Whether you're tuning in right from here in the hill country or listening across the world, I want you to feel seen, supported and reminded that you're not alone. So find your cozy spot, take a deep breath and let's talk about what it means to be human together. Today's conversation is about a profession that quietly transforms the medical experience for children and families, yet far too many people don't even know it exists.

Speaker 1:

Katie Taylor, CCLS, is the co-founder and CEO of Child Life on Call, a digital platform revolutionizing pediatric health care by putting parents at the center of the medical journey. With over 15 years of experience as a certified child life specialist, Katie has spent more than a decade at the bedside, supporting children and their families in some of their most vulnerable moments. She's also an accomplished author, podcast host, keynote speaker and a passionate advocate for bringing child life services to every family who needs them. Cat path has been as rich as it has been purpose-driven. After graduating from Penn State, she worked with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, traveling across the country to train law enforcement, educators and community leaders on child safety.

Speaker 1:

Drawn to the heart of supporting children through medical challenges, she trained at Children's National Medical Center and Inova Children's Hospital, going on to work at institutions like Dell Children's in St David's in Austin, texas. Her clinical work spans pediatric ICUs, emergency rooms, oncology units and even launching child life services in an 80-bed NICU. She's witnessed firsthand how the right preparation, language and emotional support can change the trajectory of a child's medical experience and the family's healing journey as a whole. Today, Katie is here to answer a simple but powerful question what is a child life specialist and why are they so important, whether you're a parent, a caregiver or simply someone who wants to understand how to bring more humanity into healthcare. This conversation will open your eyes to the tools, language and presence that can make all the difference. Hi Katie, hi friend.

Speaker 2:

That was amazing. Thank you so much. I love you so much. I'm so glad you're here. Cat and I have been friends for a hot minute. Yeah, I think going on a decade, decade.

Speaker 1:

Cat and I have been friends for a hot minute. Yeah, I think going on a decade.

Speaker 2:

I know.

Speaker 1:

And I'm so proud of her. I'm just I'm so impressed by her. Let me not talk about you, like you're not here.

Speaker 2:

I'm so impressed by you.

Speaker 1:

Gosh, you're such a good person.

Speaker 2:

The feeling is mutual.

Speaker 1:

You're such a good person. I'm so glad you're here to help us understand a role that's quietly changing lives and hospitals around the world, but none of us really know about it yeah. So let's start at the beginning. Let's do that.

Speaker 2:

And I want to acknowledge that the people listening here may not be in the pediatric healthcare space, but everybody here was once a child and if you didn't get to grow up and you had any kind of medical care or healthcare experience and you look back on it with a little bit of fear or unsure of like what really was happening, hopefully this resonates with you.

Speaker 2:

Child life started actually as a group of play lady volunteers in the hospital and so back in the day they would have volunteers that would come and drop off toys to kids, and now it's completely revolutionized into being a major profession in children's hospitals across the country, across the world, and we really look at what we call is psychosocial care, so the elements of mental health and psychosocial support for families and trauma-informed care and how we can put those together to really transform the medical experience for families. And the question I get all the time is can we have an adult life specialist? Because just because you turn 18 doesn't mean healthcare gets any easier and in fact it can get harder too. So it's a privilege to be a child life specialist and share more about a profession because it's so incredibly important.

Speaker 1:

So you gave us a little insight. If you were to say, a child life specialist does what exactly?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it would depend on who I was talking to. I explain it a lot like it's kind of like a teacher in the hospital. So we don't do any of the clinical interventions, we're not doing any of the pokes or x-rays or anything like that. But we'll help you understand why it's happening and we're going to help you through it too. And we work with kids as little as 22 weekers who are born into the world, and we support children of adult patients, so we span really the lifespan of families going through pediatric care. So we help you understand the hospital, we help you cope with what's happening with your medical experience. A big thing for us is the element of play and expression and therapeutic activities that really normalize the healthcare experience for kids and families. That's our big big thing is play and how we can use it and how it can really transform from something being incredibly scary to being something that it can actually feel quite empowering.

Speaker 1:

Oh my God, that sounds so, so, incredibly important. It sounds like you help families manage these big experiences, these diagnoses, these big moments in their life and you kind of guide them through those difficult waters.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I had the privilege of working for many years in the operating room space, and so what that looks like is I will have a family that will come in. Their child needs to have surgery that day, and often they don't know how to tell the child what's going to happen. Number one it's probably complex, right, like a hernia repair is not something that you can easily explain to a child Circumcision tonsils and adenoids. It's like how do I tell them without scaring them with what's going to happen next? They don't know what to expect. They have to meet a million people that day and a child life specialist. Really, we can meet them in the waiting room, get to know them and their child, assess the personality of the child and the family and really start to say how can we make this experience better for them. Number one we want to use honest, simple language so that the child understands what happens in a very age or developmentally appropriate way. We want to make sure the family feels included and collaborative and like they know how to advocate for their child because they have unique needs. So we'll walk them literally from the waiting room into the pre-op room, help the child get changed into their gown, right? So sometimes that can be a big trigger for kids is having to change their clothes. So we prepare them for what that experience is going to be like, and then we talk about the anesthesia process them for what that experience is going to be like, and then we talk about the anesthesia process.

Speaker 2:

Truly, I'll bring an anesthesia mask in, get on the level with the child and we'll just play with it at first. So to be able to fall asleep with anesthesia, you have to breathe in a mask, and we really need the child to be compliant in this. We need them to breathe, and so what we do is we play with the mask. First I could put it on like a little teddy bear or a stuffed animal, let the child do it, have the parent put it on and really just make it more of like a fun or playful activity where there's not really high stakes.

Speaker 2:

I could show them pictures of the operating room so that before they get back to the operating room they know what it's going to look like, who they're going to see, who they're going to meet, and then I truly get to accompany the child back into the operating room and be with them until they fall asleep. Sometimes we use tactics like or an alternative focus, so letting the child watch a movie as they fall asleep. Sometimes we pretend we're blowing up a big balloon and then the child will fall asleep and they were supported during that entire experience and it's so often that I'll come and report back to the parent about how it went and they thought, wow, we had no idea this day was going to go that way, and that's a really encouraging and very honoring experience to help a family through something that they thought was going to be really scary and make it much less scary and more manageable for the entire family.

Speaker 1:

You kind of took my breath away. That sounds. The thing that I'm thinking about is generationally we used to really force kids take it or else do it, or else just be quiet. The doctor is talking like a lot of forcing, a lot of difficult looks, tones. I'm imagining, really I'm imagining like a square, lots of rough edges and just a lot of force, brute force, to get the kid to do something, and it sounds like this is coming at it from the completely opposite way, which is, let's inform the child, let's be that really you guys are the bridge. Child life specialists are the bridge between the child and the family and the medical system, and so you don't exactly fit in the medical system but you help the family and the child understand the medical system. Would you say that's accurate?

Speaker 2:

That's absolutely it, and we're able to really transfer skills. You know, kind of across the operating room was one example. Another one would be hosting bingo in the playroom, so something really simple. But what it does is it can get kids out of bed. So if they did have a surgery, they need to be walking in order to be discharged. Let's get you to the playroom, let's play around a bingo, then you can get back to your bed. But that was actually something they had to accomplish that day in order to heal faster or recover faster, but it felt like play, so they were able to do it.

Speaker 2:

For siblings who aren't able to be with their brother or sister during long hospital stays, we'll interact with them and make sure they're educated about what to expect, about what their sibling is going through, invite them to come to bingo in the playroom. Then it really turns into a family bonding moment. We know that when families are in the hospital, when they're going through medical experiences, so much of their power is stripped away, and the playroom in a hospital is really a place where they get their power back. They can choose what they want to do. There are no interventions, even taking medicine, allowed in a playroom. We have very strict rules that this is the child's space. So if they have to take a medicine, we actually make them go back to their room to do it, because we want this to just be the safe space that kids get to go to.

Speaker 2:

On the other side of the coin, we can work in emergency room situations where things come in really fast and are really high stakes and let's say that there's a child who comes in and is needing in the trauma room and needs CPR and progress. I'll stand at the head of the bed with the parent and let them know exactly what's happening, what the role of each team member is, tell the parent what role they can play, answer their questions, get them a seat so they can sit down. We work really closely with social work in a lot of those high risk situations. So it's truly an honor and a privilege to understand healthcare and be able to look at it from a psychosocial, trauma-informed lens and then look at the family and see how can we make this the best experience possible.

Speaker 1:

Are child life specialists only in hospitals.

Speaker 2:

Great, great question. We have started to branch out into the community over the past couple of decades. You'll see child life specialists working in hospice, working in dental offices. You'll see them working in jails and prisons, child advocacy centers, because there's so many opportunities where kids have to go through tough things and it's nice to have that advocate who understands psychosocial and trauma-informed care to help the child and family through it.

Speaker 1:

It sounds like child life specialists are essential in multiple ways in pediatric care.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

What do you wish child life specialists? What space do you wish a child life specialist could take up in pediatric care that they aren't necessarily taking up right now?

Speaker 2:

I think my big wish is that there were more of us. Right now there's only about 6,000. And if we think about the fact that 21 million kids go into ERs every single year, there's just no match that every family gets access to that. And that's where my big you know, purpose of Child Life On Call is is I want to equip and empower parents to understand some of these things that I'm talking about now so, if they don't have access to a child life specialist, they can actually learn some of the things that I would do and then do it with their own child. So that's my whole big soapbox, as you know teaching and reaching what child life can do. Equip parents with that information so that, if they don't get access to it, they know how to really tackle any complex situation with their child.

Speaker 1:

In terms of increasing the amount of child life specialists out there. What does training look like? How does one become a child life specialist?

Speaker 2:

Great question. So you have to have an undergrad degree in child life or a related field. So for a lot of us that looks like child psychology or psychology or sociology. Some of us come from nursing or different backgrounds. We then go through a clinical supervision period where you have to get accepted into an internship program. We work for about 600 hours, unpaid but supervised by a child life specialist working clinically or in the community, and then after that period you can sign off from your internship, take a certification exam and then we have continuing education that we do every five years to recertify.

Speaker 1:

Man, that's 600 hours. That's a real barrier to who can enter that field.

Speaker 2:

That is a big problem for us, absolutely Not only just awareness that the profession exists and that people will often find out a little bit later and say, oh, I wish I could have done that, but also there's a complete barrier to entry. To be able to work for free for 600 hours is not possible. The landscape is changing a bit In our online networking and forums. I'm seeing a few hospitals offer paid internships, which would change the game for us.

Speaker 1:

Therapists are in a similar boat.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

We have a year internship while we're in graduate school where we have to work for free. Yeah, I feel like it's also 600 hours. Yeah, I don't really remember that number exactly. It's a blur.

Speaker 1:

Yeah 600 hours? I don't, I don't really remember that number exactly, it's a blur, but I remember thinking who can do this? I was. I was really only able to do it because my husband is a provider and I. I couldn't have done it otherwise. So I feel like people who otherwise have the heart and the will for it are automatically weeded out because we can't afford to feed our families and to raise our families and work 600 hours for free.

Speaker 2:

There's absolutely a privilege that comes with being able to even enter the profession, let alone complete that internship for 600 hours. I myself was able. I was living with my boyfriend at the time so he could cover the rent, and then I was working at a retail store. So I would leave the hospital, go work a night shift. You're in an evening shift in a retail store, or Saturdays or Sundays. It was exhausting, it was hard to do, wow. But when you're driven you know what you want. You go for it. Looking back, wow, I'm impressed that I did that yeah you are impressive, I am impressive.

Speaker 1:

What happens when families don't have access to child life services?

Speaker 2:

There's a big risk. I think, when families don't get access to child life services, that their family experience in the hospital won't be as, I think, impactful as it could have been. Parents don't learn how to advocate for their child. They're not able to see and model what the child life specialist can teach them. Hospital patient satisfaction scores can go down and then ultimately that leads to worse outcomes.

Speaker 2:

Children could be noncompliant because they don't understand what's happening. They go into the situation with fear rather than feeling empowered and like they have a job to do and they know exactly what's happening. So things take longer. Sometimes they'll need more medicine. An example of this is you know, I can be talking with a family and just because I have the ability to speak with them, I'll learn that the child hates a grape flavor. What do you know? What comes up from pharmacy but a grape flavored medication that the child won't take. But the nurse hasn't gotten that information yet, so now it takes longer because we have to send it back to the pharmacist. So the communication loop is really important and when child life isn't there to kind of, like you said, be the bridge between the family and the health care team, a lot of things can get missed, take longer and ultimately decrease the outcomes for kids.

Speaker 1:

As you were speaking and you said the bridge, I remember I had a doula for each of my births and I had two hospital births and she was vital. She was a vital part. She was my bridge. She got to know me before and we were very comfortable with her. We knew she was competent and kind and we knew she had. She knew how to navigate a hospital and nurses, yeah, and doctors and medication and all these things that I did not have the bandwidth for as I was laboring yeah you know I don't.

Speaker 1:

if a doctor came and said, hey, why don't you try this medication, it's going to help you. I have zero margin to to make a decision, to understand, we're out of our wheelhouse and so our doula's name is D'Andrea and she, she did. She made all those decisions and she knew how to make those decisions on my behalf. She'd check in with me, but having her was a real luxury and it sounds like that's a really similar experience.

Speaker 2:

That's such a good analogy to bring. I see a lot of. I have a good friend. She's a child life specialist who turned doula. The transition was really easy because she could already navigate the health care system and she just started advocating for another group. It wasn't children, but it was women and that person is so essential for a positive birth experience.

Speaker 2:

I feel that way for kids and families facing pediatric care, Child life is essential for that really good, deep, meaningful, positive experience. When you have a, you know I'll have families come in and I can tell that the parents have been through something traumatic medically and that they're rubbing it off on their child, not intentionally, because they want to protect them. So they'll say something like oh, I have the worst veins, it takes eight sticks in order to get blood and they kind of put that on their child without meaning to. Had that parent had a child life specialist or someone to walk them through and make it an empowering experience, they wouldn't put that on their child. And then the child then, you know, listens and takes that in and internalizes it and it can really change the experience. And we want kids to start off having great health care experiences so they learn how to advocate for themselves as they navigate health care for the rest of their lives and they're different languages.

Speaker 1:

Imagine just dropping into brazil and trying to navigate, trying to navigate something in a completely different language than other than your native language, and you're trying to make decisions on the fly and you're doing it with this diagnosis or this experience on the line, and that's a lot of pressure for the lay person oh, absolutely, and it's something as simple as a nurse coming in very quickly saying, okay, I need to flush your iv.

Speaker 2:

Let's break that down for what that means for a child. Flush is something I do at the toilet. Let's break that down for what that means for a child. Flush is something I do at the toilet and IV is like IV. Are we talking about a plant here? So instead we would say something like we need to give water to the tiny straw that's in your vein. So just kind of like you said, translating that language so it's more understandable the child's less scared. You know we're going to go into a CAT scan. Well, are there going to be cats there?

Speaker 1:

scared. You know we're going to go into a cat scan. Well, are there going to be cats there? You know, instead it's really just a circle camera. I have never thought about any of this, yeah, yes, wow, how empowering. That's incredible, thank you. Children often imagine the worst when they don't understand what's happening, just like you were saying, going into a CAT scan. So what's another way? You use language or play to help a child understand what's about to happen?

Speaker 2:

I use it in a lot of different ways and I think parents, grandparents can really take this Play is a tool to understand the child's world. So really getting down on the floor to play, listening to how they're doing it, looking for misconceptions so sometimes I'll ask the floor to play, listening to how they're doing it, looking for misconceptions. So sometimes I'll ask a child to play out what they think is going to happen, and what that does is. It allows me to see what does the child understand? What do they know?

Speaker 2:

For example, I was playing once with a little girl. She was six years old, she was diagnosed with cancer and we were playing with some medical play dolls. And of course when I play it's child-led, otherwise it's not play. So when we're playing together, she takes her marker, she gets her medical play doll, she rubs red all over this doll and she had just been diagnosed with leukemia. So in my head I am thinking, wow, she totally understands that this is a blood disorder and a blood cancer. So at the end I say, tell me about what you've drawn on this doll. And she was like those are the fireballs that are all over her body. And so there was a moment where I thought, oh crap.

Speaker 2:

She has this misconception that there's fireballs all over her body. And so I said is that what you think is happening in your body? She goes no, I have cancer body. And so I said, is that what you think is happening in your body? She goes, no, I have cancer. So I love that play can be incredibly deep and it can also be play and not that deep too. But what that was? I got to see her play and imagine and dream and she had just watched a show about fireballs and it was about that. But it opened up the conversation for me to understand. What does she know? She knows there's a difference between fireballs and it was about that. But it opened up the conversation for me to understand. What does she know?

Speaker 1:

she knows there's a difference between fireballs and leukemia also that play and that clarification helps you not impose your own fears, like you were saying earlier with the parents your own fears, your own judgments or your own perceptions and meaning. Yeah, she may think, okay, okay, I have leukemia, well, we're going to get this taken care of. She may not have that kind of overwhelming sense of dread or fear like a parent does.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, it's all we're thinking about. It's the elephant in the room, but for her, she just watched a show and they happened to have fireballs on there, so that's what she drew. When we're talking about a child getting an IV which is really common when you have a medical experience or you're in the hospital I love to talk about it like a tiny Barbie drinking straw, especially for those kids who are in that like preschool to early school age, because they're playing with dolls, so it's something they know and understand, and we were like how tiny would a straw be if a Barbie was drinking it? So we take the conversation from like you're going to have to get a needle stick to like let's throw in some play, let's imagine a little bit and Barbie's going to need a drink with this tiny straw. Let's give it to your vein too. That is sweet.

Speaker 1:

How do you support parents and siblings during a hospital stay?

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, I just want to run up to every parent, give them a cup of coffee and say do you need a minute? Have you showered, have you gone to the bathroom? Because a lot of times the answer is no. I've been holding it. The doctor might come in. So the first thing I do when I'm like do you need a beat? I introduce them to what I do, make sure they're on board. Collaborative, let them know what I'm going to tell their child so that they're on board.

Speaker 2:

I would love for parents to be a part of the conversation and the play whenever possible. Sometimes they don't have the bandwidth, so tired, they'd rather just kind of sit and scroll on their phone. I love that too, because it gives them a tiny break. So my first thing is like are the caregiver's needs met? My second thing is what can I do to help support them? What do they need done? What clarifications do they need about their child's care? And, number three, how can I uniquely show up for this family? Not every family is going through the same experience or needs the same things, so a lot of that is my assessment process. How can I support this family?

Speaker 1:

Earlier you said there are only 6,000. I keep thinking about that number and I know you have a huge heart for expanding that number.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And so what have you done so far to kind of fill that gap between how many child life specialists there are and how many there should be?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I had an interaction with a mom and it was pivotal for me. She had a three-week-old with meningitis in the ICU here in Austin Three weeks and when you have bacterial meningitis, that earns you at least a 21-day stay at the beginning of your life's journey. So this mom was a new mom and she looked at me and it was dark in the room and I just remember like the new mom and she looked at me and it was dark in the room and I just remember like the IV beeping and she looked at me and she said, please just connect me to another mom who's gone through this before. And I couldn't. I didn't have another mom in the hallway. It was a tiny children's hospital at the time. I didn't have another mom I could connect her with.

Speaker 2:

And I thought to myself, if I could put a podcast in her ear of another mom with a three-week-old with bacterial meningitis, she would have someone. And that began the mission of Child Life On Call, which is my podcast. So we have over 265 episodes of parents sharing their stories of what it's like. So the next time a parent looks at me and says can you please tell me another parent has gone through this before I'm able to give them a resource and these conversations. I've learned so much about the pediatric and parent experience and how essential it is for other parents to learn from others who have gone through it before, and that it's really, I think, my life's mission.

Speaker 1:

You started a podcast inside your closet.

Speaker 2:

As we do. Yeah, that's right, that's exactly right.

Speaker 1:

And then you also created an app. Yes, can you tell us about it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's another gap closer. So for me it was important that as soon as families get admitted to the hospital, they're told we're not just caring medically, we're caring psychosocially for your family too is an app that we license to children's hospitals so that, upon admissions, families are notified, they have access to Support Spot, which has not only Child Life on Call resources and all of our podcast episodes, but the resources that the hospitals have, which often don't even get into the hands of the family because the clinicians just aren't available like we want to be. So parking information, right when to stay, where to eat, how often the virtual support groups meet, all of these things that exist to support families but often don't get put in the hands of families. So support spot is that essential tool. You're admitted, here you go, you get support.

Speaker 1:

You're talking about that like it's something you did over the weekend, but but I know better yeah, how long did that take to create? What was that process like?

Speaker 2:

well, um, my dad and I co-founded this company together in March of 2020 because we have an amazing timing. I don't know if you remember what was happening in the world at that point Christmas yeah. Christmas in March. Christmas in March, yeah, christmas in March.

Speaker 1:

Wow, March of 2020.

Speaker 2:

March of 2020 is March. 14th is when we have our LLC date.

Speaker 1:

Wow.

Speaker 2:

I was working in the hospital. My husband was also in health care, so it was a really scary time, but because my husband wasn't able to go to work, he could stay home with the kids and I was really able to dive in and figure out how do we take this idea to our MVP our minimum viable product and so we worked and we created this app alongside a company, and we're able to pilot in our first hospital in January of 2022. I'm so proud of you, thank you.

Speaker 1:

What else did you do during COVID?

Speaker 2:

My husband made sourdough, so I ate a lot.

Speaker 1:

You wrote a book.

Speaker 2:

Oh, the super silly wash your hands dance book. That was such a beautiful book. Working in a NICU, I know that washing hands saves lives and that it would honestly be sometimes a barrier for why siblings couldn't come in. So the wash your hands dance book was really a gift to siblings of NICU babies to learn how to wash their hands thoroughly before they visited their baby. And it turned out to have a double meaning, as it was COVID and we all really needed to wash our hands.

Speaker 1:

We ordered that book and we had it at every sink for our girls. How sweet yeah during COVID.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was a love kind of book with my son and he picked all the characters that were in it. I worked with an amazing illustrator, hannah Cat Llewellyn, and yeah, it was a beautiful little children's book.

Speaker 1:

If a parent listening right now doesn't have access to child life services, what's one thing they can do today to help prepare and support their child in a medical situation?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I love that chat. Gpt is a tool now it's a tool we've never had before. So I would truly go to childlifeoncallcom and we have a backslash. Find a child life specialist there.

Speaker 2:

You have child life specialists that work virtually so you you can connect with one yeah, and another thing you can do is you can truly just put your child's age what they're going to have done for their medical procedure into chat GPT and say give this to me in simple language in a way that I can tell my child at their developmental level, and it will spit out some pretty good information. Of course, you'll have to talk with your child, always let them lead the conversation, but it'll give you some clues about how to take something complex and make it really simple to understand.

Speaker 1:

What other tools can parents find on your website?

Speaker 2:

You can download the Support Spot app. Of course, we have Child Life Specialist written procedure guides so that you know what to expect, what the sensory experiences are you're going to go through and what I think is the really special sauce of how to advocate for your child in that moment. If you don't know how to navigate it On the website, we also have free downloads, a coping plan so that you and your child, ahead of time, can create really just kind of a conversation about what can they choose when they're in the room where there's not a lot of choices. I love to say things like let your child choose to sit on the chair or the bed. Let your child choose to bring the iPad or a book. Let your child choose to hold your hand or hold a squish ball. These are things that kids can do that can really change the game during that medical experience.

Speaker 1:

Gives them some autonomy where they really don't have much. You got it. What's your vision for how technology and human connection can work together to transform pediatric care?

Speaker 2:

My vision is that every single family who gets a medical experience has access to child life tools and resources, and I would love to say that every family gets that one-on-one child life specialist in the room, because nothing can replace that. But I know that technology can help accelerate the way that we get information to families, so I think for me it's that every family who faces it knows how to prepare, support and then respond to their child therapeutically during medical experiences prepare support and then respond to their child therapeutically during medical experiences.

Speaker 1:

So it sounds like the gold standard and if you can get it is an in-person child life specialist. Yeah, and absent of that, we can rely on technology in the form of your app or popping something into ChatGPT that says hey, how do. I support my child through this, but ultimately it's the human connection that makes a difference.

Speaker 2:

It's the human connection and collaborate with your provider and your care team. They have been through this before. You can ask them hey, what's worked for other kids before? What have you heard? Works really well, and they can give you a ton of insight too. So it's not just child life specialists. We do have a very special role, but there's a lot of support around you and your care team wants your child and your family to do really well and heal, so always using them as a resource.

Speaker 1:

Just because they're not offering it doesn't mean that they don't want to offer it. It just probably means that they're busy and maybe it's not top of mind. But if we pause and ask them a question and ask them to support us in that way, it sounds like you're saying that they'll have tools available to help us through.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean I facilitate that all the time. If we go into my child's doctor appointment I'll ask the tech what's your name, what's your favorite color? My child's favorite color is blue. Like I'm connecting them with the care team and I'm kind of doing it in a way so it humanizes my child as not just a patient but a person. But it also has my child connect with the person who's going to be taking care of them and that's a real simple conversation. I love to play. I spy when we're in a room. It's really normalizing the experience, getting play involved whenever possible and then really building that human connection involved whenever possible and then really building that human connection.

Speaker 1:

My daughters, we take them to see their doctor and we've been with her for a very long time and my youngest gave her a sticker and she put Angela, dr Angela put it on her little tool basket. She's had it on her little tool basket for six or seven years. She's changed locations. She keeps tool basket for six or seven years she's changed locations. She keeps the tool basket, keeps the sticker. So when we go see Dr Angela the girls are like, hey, do you have the sticker? How's the sticker? Yeah, and there is so much connection and pride there because oh, my doctor cares about me.

Speaker 1:

She kept the sticker I gave her. Like I am part of her. My girls think I'm part of her medical experience and that creates a real warmth and a trust. And I noticed when they're sick they're like can we go see Dr Angela? I mean they're fine with it, they're fine with that experience. And I think it's because Dr Angela took that little extra time to put that sticker on her little basket and is thoughtful enough to kind of keep it going so I can see how. And that's just for regular checkups, regular sick visits, and so I can see how having a child life specialist and having that warmth and connection between you all and the families and the kiddos going through it can really transform their experience.

Speaker 2:

It's such a simple thing, that sticker, but now your girls probably think about it on the way rather than dreading what might happen. But, you're right. That's a perfect example to do it.

Speaker 1:

Cat, where can people find you, connect with your work and learn more about Child Life On Call? Yeah, I'm most active on Instagram.

Speaker 2:

So you can find me there. That's Child Life on Call. Yeah, I'm most active on Instagram, so you can find me there. That's Child Life on Call. And also my podcast is Child Life on Call. If you head to our website, you guessed it childlifeoncallcom slash podcast. You can find me there.

Speaker 1:

Cat, thank you for your heart, skill and the vision you bring to this work and for helping us see the power of preparation, language and presence in moments when families need it most.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for being with me.

Speaker 1:

Friends, thank you for being here. Take good care of yourself. And that's a wrap on today's episode of Couch Time with Cat. I'm so grateful you joined me here, whether you were walking, driving or curled up with a cup of something warm. I hope today's conversation left you feeling just a little more connected to yourself and a little less alone in whatever you're walking through. If you'd like to connect with me, you can find me at Cat, that's C-A-T-I-A-H-O-L-Mcom, or over on Instagram at Cat. I'd love to hear your thoughts, your questions or what this episode stirred in you. If we had a guest on today's episode, you can find all their links and info in the show notes. Please support their work and follow along. If they resonated with you and if this episode meant something to you, would you please take a moment to rate, review and share it with a friend? These stories matter. Your voice matters. Until next time, be kind to yourself.

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Catia Hernandez Holm

Host