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Promoting Resilience in Paediatric Health Care: The Role of the Child Life Specialist

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Child and Adolescent Resilience Within Medical Contexts

Abstract

The delivery of health care has dramatically improved over the last century, yet the psychosocial needs of paediatric patients continue. Our evolving understanding of resilience suggests it is influenced not only by individual factors, but also environmental and social factors. The interactions between these factors can help protect or can create additional risks for patients facing adversity. Certified Child Life Specialists assess individual, family, social, and health care variables in order to provide interventions that promote resilience and adaptive responses. They use play, preparation, active coping strategies, education, and expressive activities as interventions to mitigate the vulnerability of paediatric patients. This chapter begins with a discussion of the historical context of paediatric health care and the development of the child life specialist role followed by a review of assessment variables and interventions that can be offered to promote adaptive responses in a health care context.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Children refers to infants, children, and youth.

  2. 2.

    Family refers to the child’s primary caregiver(s) and sibling(s).

  3. 3.

    CLS represents child life specialists for ease of use in this chapter.

  4. 4.

    Patient refers to paediatric patients including infants, children, and youth.

  5. 5.

    Variable—child life literature speaks of “variables” whereas the resilience literature speaks of “risk and protective factors”, for simplicity we will use “factors”.

  6. 6.

    One online programme for Canadian school age children and youth with chronic illness is Upopolis https://www.upopolis.com/login.html.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, USA

    Cathy Humphreys C.C.L.S., B.A.Sc., C.L.St.dipl.

  2. IWK Health Centre, Halifax, NS, USA

    Chantal K. LeBlanc M.H.S., C.C.L.S.

Authors
  1. Cathy Humphreys C.C.L.S., B.A.Sc., C.L.St.dipl.
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  2. Chantal K. LeBlanc M.H.S., C.C.L.S.
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Correspondence to Cathy Humphreys C.C.L.S., B.A.Sc., C.L.St.dipl. .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development Joint Center for Bioethics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Carey DeMichelis

  2. Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development, University of Toronto, OISE, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Michel Ferrari

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Humphreys, C., LeBlanc, C.K. (2016). Promoting Resilience in Paediatric Health Care: The Role of the Child Life Specialist. In: DeMichelis, C., Ferrari, M. (eds) Child and Adolescent Resilience Within Medical Contexts. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32223-0_9

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