I began my child life career at a phenomenal children's hospital inside an adult hospital in Florida. I was originally hired as a part time child life specialist in the "day stay" unit. This is where infusions, dialysis and sedated procedures occurred. It was PERFECT, except for being only a part time position it sounded amazing! I loved the different opportunities I would have to widen my child life scope by seeing so many different populations. Well, the week after I accepted the position I got a call asking how I felt about being the child life specialist in the inpatient neuroscience unit as that day stay position would most likely be turning to a full time position by the following month and that CLS that was in the position would like to stay there. I was a team player so of course I understood and loved that I was even able to start part time and move to full time so quickly so YES I would love to do that.
Well, a year went by and the original hope of that full time position still had not come to fruition. Long story short it was funding related. I stayed as the part time specialist in neuro and I loved the team and looked forward to the day it turned full time. I was also sharing the unit with the day stay CLS as she was still considered part time in day stay and neuro got the full time position so she would split her time there once I left for the day. It wasn't ideal but we continued hoping funding would come through.
Eventually a position opened up in the behavioral health unit where they needed a part time specialist there! The CLS in day stay agreed that we should split that position and say the other 3/4 of the time in our respective units. It was actually quite exciting. We got to head up the program and put together what the part time hours looked like in that unit. I worked in the outpatient area and would have group for 1 hour a day where we would do a therapeutic activity. I saw patients that had been moved from the inpatient behavioral health unit and were recovering after attempted suicide or suicide ideation, eating disorders, etc. They would come in during the day for additional therapy instead of returning to school as they felt they still needed additional support before making that step. I will write a post on what behavioral health looked like as well to give you all an idea of this different child life position.
After 3 months in that position along with covering neuro we finally got funding for the full time position in day stay! That meant we could hire someone for behavioral health or I could take that position and someone else could be hired for neuro. After speaking with my manager we both agreed for consistency for the neuro unit it would be best to have me stay in that position, which I loved and enjoyed for about 6 months before the child life specialist in hematology/oncology approached me. She was leaving and wanted the unit to have someone who was already familiar with them and I had shown interest previously as we overlapped at times with brain tumors on the neuroscience floor. I had always wanted to work with the oncology population too and although I felt awful leaving neuro as they had finally gotten someone consistent I felt it was the right thing to do. I spent 1.5 years there and loved each minute learning about the different cancer diagnoses, blood disorders and we even dabbled a little in orthopedics on this floor.
At this time my husband and I decided it would be best for our family if we moved closer to family as we planned to soon start trying to start our own family and add a little one to the mix. The rest is history as we now have a beautiful little girl and I am working at a new hospital with more possibilities to further my career and help sweet babies while they are hospitalized.
I love chatting with you guys about my many previous specialties and would love to hear from you if you have any questions about my previous experiences. Feel free to reach out.