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When you become part of the Chapters Health Team, you’ll realize it’s more than a job. It’s a mission. We’re committed to providing outstanding patient care and a high level of customer service in our communities every day. Our employees make all the difference in our success!

Role:
The Certified Child Life Specialist (CCLS), under the supervision of the Clinical Manager and in collaboration with Director, Social Worker, provides support to children and their families. The CCLS will implement and administer a program consisting of therapeutic activities and interventions to pediatric hospice patients, families, children residing in the home of adult hospice patients, and community bereaved children across the service area. They will collaborate with the RN case managers, social workers, chaplains, bereavement counselors, and volunteers as part of the interdisciplinary team to continue developing age and developmentally appropriate materials, offer guidance for pediatric medical resources, and provide anticipatory bereavement support through legacy interventions. The CCLS will also provide support at children’s bereavement events, such as Camp Braveheart and Celebration of Life, as needed.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities - Within the philosophy, objectives, and policies of Hope Health carries out the following essential functions:

Quality Provision of Services:   

Collaborates with the psychosocial team to support pediatric hospice, palliative, and bereavement programs for children that reflect the needs of the service area community and ensures program objectives are aligned with the organization’s strategic goals.  Establishes ongoing supportive relationships with pediatric families. Provides education and developmentally appropriate coping tools to children and families to adjust to the stress and uncertainty of acute and chronic illness, injury, trauma, disability, loss and bereavement in both group and individual format. Provides clinical services to children and adolescents in a manner that is sensitive to the child’s developmental stage: personal, cultural and spiritual beliefs and practices of the child and family; and their preparedness to deal with significant decline or the possibility of dying. Facilitates interactions between patients, families and staff. Offers planning and therapeutic support at annual children’s bereavement events such as Camp Braveheart and Children’s Celebration of Life. Provides comprehensive age-appropriate anticipatory grief, loss, and bereavement support to siblings and other children, such as family, friends and classmates as needed. Educates families about the needs of dying and grieving children at all developmental stages. Provides ongoing education to clinical staff regarding psychosocial needs of pediatric hospice patients and child needs. Offers proactive support to healthcare professionals by facilitating group and individual debriefings as needed. Provides evidence-based, developmentally and psychologically appropriate interventions including therapeutic play, preparation for procedures, and education to reduce fear, anxiety, and pain. Provides age-appropriate information and emotional guidance as desired and appropriate in context of family decisions.

People/Communications:

Demonstrates skills in communicating with children in a developmentally appropriate manner on issues related to adjustment to illness, loss and grief. Collaborating with the IDG, participates actively in the creation and implementation of pediatric plan of care, considering the physical, emotional, spiritual, psychosocial, cultural, developmental, and educational needs of the patient. Provides comprehensive age-appropriate anticipatory loss, grief, and bereavement support to all family members, including siblings. Educates families about the needs of dying and grieving children at all developmental stages. Works with community partners and agencies to facilitate outreach and support for children and community members affected by the loss. Provides end of life and grief education outreach to community organizations Collaborates with pediatric and social work leadership to establish and maintain program performance metrics linked to outcomes to ensure program goals are achieved. Maintains ongoing performance improvement activities to ensure the quality of children’s services based on survey data and feedback from peers. Assists Bereavement Counselors in planning and facilitating bereavement programs, as needed.  Cultivates and maintains collaborative relationships with community organizations and business partners In conjunction with the Marketing Dept, as requested by leadership, serves as spokesperson for children’s programming to include public speaking and written communication. As needed, supports children’s hospital, outpatient providers, and families as children’s hospice liaison with hospice education, discharge planning, and service enrollment.

Financial Stewardship:

Assists leadership in developing funding resources to support children’s bereavement and pediatric hospice programming. Fundraising efforts will be focused on children’s programming and is based on overall organizational needs and outcomes. Assists leadership in collection and interpretation of data for funding impact reports.

The above statements are intended to be a representative summary of the major duties and responsibilities performed by incumbents of this job.  The incumbents may be requested to perform job-related tasks other than those stated in this description.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

The Child Life Specialist will be responsible for supervising applicable Program Facilitators, Administrative staff, interns, and volunteers.

Experience Requirements

The Child Life Specialist must have at least five years related pediatric/child expressive therapy experience; previous experience with individuals with life-limiting illness required, possess knowledge of death/dying and clinical experience with grief and loss in counseling role with proficiency with Microsoft Office suite and electronic medical record systems. Additional experience in the home care setting is preferred.

Education Requirements:

The Child Life Specialist must have a Child Life certification through Association for Child Life Professionals with designation of CCLS; undergraduate coursework in counseling and/or death/dying/bereavement, preferred.

Required Certificates and/or Licenses:

Certifications and licensure in child and adolescent grief counseling must be pursued and attained within two years of employment. Candidate must also pursue, on an ongoing basis, continuing education credits in pediatric palliative and hospice end of life education and expressive therapies through pre-approved certifying organization.

Overall Skills:

The ability to demonstrate superlative oral and written communication skills, in English, as well as ability to organize and manage projects within defined timeframe and budget; work both independently and as part of a team; demonstrate excellent interpersonal and collaborative; demonstrate organizational skills with ability to delegate and follow up; manage multiple tasks and stressful situations with a positive attitude; demonstrate a strong work ethic and attention to detail; high degree of accuracy in typed work; excellent proofreading skills; learn patient health information systems; demonstrate excellent interpersonal and communication skills necessary to positively influence and interact with the public, volunteers, co-workers and donors.

Physical/Mental/Emotional Skills:

The ability to see, hear, grasp, lift, speak, sit and walk or otherwise perform essential functions with or without reasonable accommodations; demonstrate the mental and emotional ability to work with death/dying; demonstrate the maturity, customer service skills, and flexibility to work with individuals under stress; work in a fast paced and quickly changing environment; work under pressure and deadlines; effectively recognize and appreciate the diversity in the workplace.

Technological Skills:

The ability to demonstrate familiarity with Microsoft Word, Excel, and Power Point or other similar software packages; demonstrate proficiency with electronic medical record systems; demonstrate working knowledge of email and internet services.

Reasoning Ability:

The ability to apply common sense understanding to carry out instructions furnished in written or oral form and deal with problems involving several concrete variables in standardized situations.

Physical Demands:

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to sit and talk or hear.  The employee is occasionally required to stand; walk; use hands to finger, handle, or feel; reach with hands and arms; taste or smell and push, pull, lift/carry 35 lbs. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, color vision, peripheral vision, depth perception, and ability to adjust focus. 

Work Environment:

The work environment characteristics are representative of those an employee would normally encounter while performing the essential functions of this job in an office. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Works in a business office with computers, printers, copy/fax machines, and telephones. The noise level in the work environment is usually light to moderate. The environmental conditions are that of what is to be expected in a temperature-controlled building.

Compensation Pay Range:

$50,527.53 - $75,205.18

This position requires consent to drug and/or alcohol testing after a conditional offer of employment is made, as well as on-going compliance with the Drug-Free Workplace Policy.

All Chapters Health System employees performing services for Florida affiliates are submitted through the Florida Care Provider Background Screening Clearinghouse to verify eligibility after a conditional offer of employment is made as well as ongoing eligibility. For more information, please visit https://info.flclearinghouse.com/.