What is child life?
A child life specialist is a professional that works predominately in the healthcare field as a part of the multidisciplinary team serving children and their families. Child life specialists work to minimize the fears associated with stressful life events (such as a hospitalization, death, loss, natural disaster), foster positive development, and normalize these stressful environments. Child life specialists do this through preparation for procedures/experiences, play, and coping skills training. Play is a safe medium for understanding a child’s fears and concerns, learning about future events, and normalizing stressful environments for the child and their family. Child life specialists work in healthcare settings, such as hospitals and doctor’s offices, and community settings, such as bereavement centers, dental offices, adoption facilities, and court system. To learn more about what a child life specialist is, visit Why Child Life.
Applying to the child life concentration
Once students concentrating in child life have completed 12 human development course credit hours and 60 hours overall, they need to apply to the child life concentration. Application and formal acceptance into the child life concentration is required for admission into upper-level courses, such as HD 426 and HD 496. Students should have a minimum GPA of a 3.0 GPA to be eligible for acceptance into the concentration.
Application to the Child Life Concentration should be submitted once students have completed 60 overall credit hours and at least 12 hours of HD major courses. Students must be formally accepted into the program before they can take HD 426 Hospitalized Children and Youth and before they can be scheduled for an internship.
Admission and retention in the Child Life Concentration is based upon (a) an overall and major GPA of 3.0, (b) completion of 60 hours and 12 HD hours, and (c) submission of a complete and well written application. It is the student’s responsibility to make application for admission to the concentration.
Applications will be reviewed once a semester.
| Semester | Application Deadline |
| Fall | First Wednesday of October |
| Spring | First Wednesday of February |
| Summer | First Wednesday of June |
Students will receive information regarding the committee’s decision on their application the month following each application deadline.
In addition to academic achievement and courses completed, the faculty committee will judge applications on student’s ability to:
- Demonstrate familiarity and knowledge of the role of child life specialists
- Pursue pre-internship experiences (student has begun to pursue experiences with children in and outside of healthcare)
- Submit a complete application with clear witting with minimal grammatical errors
- Meet the GPA requirement of the concentration
To apply to the concentration, please complete this application. The electronic form will ask you the following:
- Your name
- Your CWID
- Upload a 1 page resume
- Upload a 1 page paper about the role of child life specialists, how you became interested in child life, and what characteristics you display that make you a good fit for the profession
If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Sherwood Burns-Nader at sburns@ches.ua.edu.
Internships
One of the requirements for the child life concentration is the completion of a child life internship (HD 496). Child life internships are unique in that students apply and compete for an internship at a program of their choice. Internships are completed during a student’s last semester. Students apply for internships the semester before the internship. Child life internships are extremely competitive. For example, hospitals may receive as many as 100 or more applications, but they only accept 2 students per semester. Because internships are highly competitive, students typically apply to around 25 different hospitals in hopes of obtaining one internship. It is important to note that the HDFS department cannot appoint a student an internship. Students must apply at eligible sites and obtain an internship through the application process. Students are encouraged to frequently meet with the coordinator of child life, Dr. Sherwood Burns-Nader, to prepare for the application process.
What are internship sites looking for in an applicant? As a student in the child life concentration, it is important that you acquire and maintain knowledge of child development, family systems, and child life during your coursework. Internship sites will expect that students will be able to recall this knowledge and apply the knowledge on their own. Internship sites are also looking for pre-internship experience. Pre-internship experiences are those experiences with children inside and outside of healthcare that help students develop the knowledge, skills, and abilities of internship readiness. At the time of application, students should have at least 6 experiences with children, with at least one of those experiences within a healthcare setting. It is important to note that many hospitals prefer for at least one healthcare experience to be a child life practicum. Examples of experiences outside of healthcare include volunteering for after-school programs with school age children, supervising a youth and adolescent group, or gaining experience in a nursery program. Experiences inside of the healthcare setting include volunteering at a pediatric hospital, volunteering in a child life program, bereavement programs, camps serving children with special healthcare needs, child life practicums, and volunteering with a community child life specialist.
Students complete their internship during their last semester, registering for HD 496 (12 credit hours). During the semester, students will complete 600 hours of child life experiences in a hospital, experiencing different rotations. The goal is to help students transition to a professional and obtain the competencies needed to be a Certified Child Life Specialist. For more information about internships from the Association of Child Life Professionals, visit Clinical Internship (childlife.org)
Practicum
Practicum is the shadowing of a Certified Child Life Specialist as an introductory experience into the profession. Practicum allows you to observe child life interventions to gain a better understanding of the profession. Practicum settings may vary, but most practicum opportunities will be either in a pediatric hospital or a pediatric unit of an adult hospital. Other settings include, but are not limited to: therapeutic, medical or health related camp settings; hospice, grief, or support centers; rehabilitation settings.
It is student’s responsibility to set up practicum opportunities. To obtain practicums, students can search for opportunities in hospitals of their interest. Students also have the option for obtaining some practicum hours in Tuscaloosa through registering for HD 436. Remember, most hospitals give a preference for applicants who have completed practicum hours.