Child Life specialist Jesse with a patient in the playroom.
Child Life specialist Janice gives lessons in painting.
Child Life Services
Kids don’t stop being kids just because they’re sick. Child Life specialists help bridge the gap between home and hospital and school with age-appropriate activities designed to help young patients understand and adapt to the hospital experience.
The Child Life program at Children’s Hospital features twenty highly trained and certificated Child Life specialists who promote growth through therapeutic play, education and self-expression. The Child Life team includes four certified teachers working in our Hospital School Program, an art therapist supporting kids in our Rehabilitation unit and an artist-in-residence guiding projects in our Immunocompromised unit. It also means playrooms, stocked with goodies and supported by Child Life specialists, along with a teen lounge for adolescents, where the pokes and probes of hospital stays are out-of-bounds.
Child Life programs also include pre-operative preparation with Child Life specialist Tom Collins, who uses medical play to helps kids gain a sense of mastery over medical procedures that can seem uncomfortable or frightening.
Contact us
Phone: (510) 428-3520
Fax: (510) 597-7024
Child Life Internships
Children's Child Life department offers internships to qualified students currently enrolled in an academic Child Life program, or a related field. Click here to learn more.
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