"Child Life Month-How do you Celebrate?" Blog Submission
April 27, 2012
Each year the Child Life Council asks members of the profession to submit details about the creative and fun ways that they have
celebrated Child Life Month. Recently, the Child Life Club created a submission to the “Child Life Month--How Do You Celebrate” blog, which was accepted and released this morning!
Please visit the Child Life Council’s website to see our posted
submission: http://community.childlife.org/p/bl/et/blogid=0&blogaid=228&source=6
celebrated Child Life Month. Recently, the Child Life Club created a submission to the “Child Life Month--How Do You Celebrate” blog, which was accepted and released this morning!
Please visit the Child Life Council’s website to see our posted
submission: http://community.childlife.org/p/bl/et/blogid=0&blogaid=228&source=6
Preparing to Enter the Child Life Profession at Illinois State University
Submitted by the Illinois State University Spring 2012 Child Life Club Executive Board: Rebecca Holtzman (President), Sarah O’Neal (Vice President), Katie E. Grabowski (Treasurer), Kayla Dempsey (Secretary), Eriko Omori (Fellowship & Membership Chair)
As future professionals in the field of Child Life, the students of Illinois State University’s Child Life Club hosted several activities in order to celebrate Child Life Month. Our club seeks to give future Child Life Specialists hands-on experience for their future professions through education and community-based volunteer opportunities. In an effort to promote the profession and celebrate Child Life Month, the club helped students build their “child life toolbox” during one of the club meetings in March. Activities included making homemade bubbles and bubble wands, creating pencil pinwheels and making homemade seek-and-finds with rice! Club members also learned how it is possible to turn a game like Jenga into a therapeutic activity for patients!
We also celebrated Child Life Month with the club’s first annual Medical Play Day titled “Band-Aids, Glitter, and Stethoscopes, Oh My!” on March 31st. During this two-hour event, 25 Daisy and Brownie Girl Scouts from Central Illinois gathered for a day of medical fun. Girls participated in six different stations, each designed to allow children the opportunity to interact with real medical equipment, explore their creativity, and become familiar with medical items often used in doctor’s offices and hospital settings. Activities included needle-less syringe painting, needle-less syringe sand art, finger puppets made from casting materials, Band-Aid art and medical collages, medical mask creatures, and making their own stress balls from medical gloves! The final activity included in the Child Life Club’s Medical Play Day was dramatic medical play, where girls had the opportunity to wear real isolation gowns, gloves, shoe and hair covers, as well as masks as they “treated” their stuffed animal “patients” at the “ABC Hospital.” Kids had the chance to diagnosis their patient and write chart notes, use stethoscopes to hear their own heartbeat and the heartbeat of their patient, prepare their patient’s skin and give them a shots using needle-less syringes, and finally fix patient “ouches” with lots of band aids! The event was a huge success for both the Girl Scouts and the participating club members. As the Girl Scouts left the event they shared with their parents all the projects they created, and could be heard excitably exclaiming “Look at my finger puppet!”, “I want to go home and play doctor!,” and “I had so much fun!”
We are so happy to have the support of Illinois State University’s Child Life Graduate Program in order to provide this event and promote the Child Life profession through the Illinois State University Child Life Club. We look forward to many more Child Life Month celebrations as we graduate from Illinois State University and enter the Child Life profession!
***In compliance with media release policies of Illinois State University as well as the Central Illinois Girl Scout council, media consent was obtained from photographed subjects and their legal guardian(s).
As future professionals in the field of Child Life, the students of Illinois State University’s Child Life Club hosted several activities in order to celebrate Child Life Month. Our club seeks to give future Child Life Specialists hands-on experience for their future professions through education and community-based volunteer opportunities. In an effort to promote the profession and celebrate Child Life Month, the club helped students build their “child life toolbox” during one of the club meetings in March. Activities included making homemade bubbles and bubble wands, creating pencil pinwheels and making homemade seek-and-finds with rice! Club members also learned how it is possible to turn a game like Jenga into a therapeutic activity for patients!
We also celebrated Child Life Month with the club’s first annual Medical Play Day titled “Band-Aids, Glitter, and Stethoscopes, Oh My!” on March 31st. During this two-hour event, 25 Daisy and Brownie Girl Scouts from Central Illinois gathered for a day of medical fun. Girls participated in six different stations, each designed to allow children the opportunity to interact with real medical equipment, explore their creativity, and become familiar with medical items often used in doctor’s offices and hospital settings. Activities included needle-less syringe painting, needle-less syringe sand art, finger puppets made from casting materials, Band-Aid art and medical collages, medical mask creatures, and making their own stress balls from medical gloves! The final activity included in the Child Life Club’s Medical Play Day was dramatic medical play, where girls had the opportunity to wear real isolation gowns, gloves, shoe and hair covers, as well as masks as they “treated” their stuffed animal “patients” at the “ABC Hospital.” Kids had the chance to diagnosis their patient and write chart notes, use stethoscopes to hear their own heartbeat and the heartbeat of their patient, prepare their patient’s skin and give them a shots using needle-less syringes, and finally fix patient “ouches” with lots of band aids! The event was a huge success for both the Girl Scouts and the participating club members. As the Girl Scouts left the event they shared with their parents all the projects they created, and could be heard excitably exclaiming “Look at my finger puppet!”, “I want to go home and play doctor!,” and “I had so much fun!”
We are so happy to have the support of Illinois State University’s Child Life Graduate Program in order to provide this event and promote the Child Life profession through the Illinois State University Child Life Club. We look forward to many more Child Life Month celebrations as we graduate from Illinois State University and enter the Child Life profession!
***In compliance with media release policies of Illinois State University as well as the Central Illinois Girl Scout council, media consent was obtained from photographed subjects and their legal guardian(s).