March is National Child Life Month! And we’re giving a much-deserved shout-out to our friends on the Child Life team at Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children. The team dedicates their life to making the hospital easier for kiddos, and that’s something we can fully get behind! We work closely with their team to identify ways we can support their patients’ health and well-being. Over the years, we’ve collaborated closely with Child Life to launch PAWS for RMHC, our hospital dog program that welcomed its first dog, Posey, in May 2021.
Community, meet the Child Life team at RMHC:
Q: Let’s start with something fun. What are you looking forward to most this month, personally or professionally?
A: We love March because it gives us an opportunity to educate patients, families, and staff about all the ways Child Life Specialists can support them and encourage them.
Q: Tell us a little bit about your job. What does a day in the life of the Child Life team look like?
A: Between the four Specialists at Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children, we see patients in pre-op, Outpatient Infusion Center, general pediatrics floor, and PICU. Every day is completely different than the day before. We never know what to expect on any given day, and that’s one of the things we all love about our job.
Q: What is your favorite part of your job?
A: Helping kids go through hard things and seeing their resilience. Kara personally loves when you get to the end of a medical procedure, and a kid says, “That wasn’t so bad.”
Q: What inspired you to do the work that you do?
A: Kara has a bunch of nurses in her ancestry, and she knew she wanted to work in healthcare, but she didn’t want to poke people. So when she read about Child Life when she was 12, she knew that this job was a perfect fit for her.
Q: What role does Rocky Mountain Children’s Health Foundation play in your work?
A: The Child Life team utilizes the Foundation for financial support for our patients and supplies for distraction/normalization tools. The Foundation was instrumental in helping us acquire our first facility dog, Posey. They helped us secure a grant and utilize donated funds to care for and sustain the Paws for RMHC program.
Q: How has working with the Foundation impacted you and the work you do?
A: For years, the Foundation has assisted us with supplies to promote distraction and normalization for our patients. With the Paws for RMHC program, we have expanded our relationship and implemented creative marketing tools to help promote RMHC and RMCHF.
To the Child Life team at RMHC and the Child Life teams across all the hospitals we work with, THANK YOU! You are doing incredible work to support children and their families, and we are so grateful for your partnership.
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