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Child Life Specialists


Overview

Child Life Specialists

Introduction

Child life specialists work in health care settings to help infants, children, adolescents, and their families through illness or injury. One of the primary roles of the child life specialist is to ease the anxiety and stress that often accompany hospitalization, injury, or routine medical care. Child life specialists help children, adolescents, and their families maintain living patterns that are as close to normal as possible, and they try to minimize the potential trauma of hospitalization. Child life specialists do this by provi...

Quick Facts


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Median Salary

$52,908

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Employment Prospects

Good

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Minimum Education Level

Bachelor's Degree


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Experience

Internship


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Skills

Interpersonal
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Personality Traits

Helpful
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Earnings

Salaries for child life specialists vary greatly depending on such factors as the region of the country a specialist works in, education level, certification, and the size of the employer. For example, salaries tend to be higher in large metropolitan teaching hospitals than in small community hospitals. According to Salary.com, salaries for child life specialists ranged from $47,234 to $59,317 ...

Work Environment

Child life specialists are members of the health care team in a variety of settings, including hospitals, clinics, and hospice facilities. In most hospitals, the child life specialist works in a special playroom. Sometimes the specialist may go to the child's hospital room. In outpatient facilities, the specialist may work in a waiting room or a designated playroom. According to the American Ac...

Outlook

The employment outlook for child life specialists is very favorable. The American Academy of Pediatrics reports that most hospitals specializing in pediatric care have child life programs, with more than 400 hospitals in North America having such a program. Child life services are recommended and provided to different degrees in community hospitals with pediatric units, ambulatory clinics, and ...