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Collaborating for Family Centered Care: Integrating Child Life Specialists in the Prenatal Setting
Title: Collaborating for Family Centered Care: Integrating Child Life Specialists in the Prenatal Setting
- Describe how the role of the child life specialist can be integrated into prenatal settings.
- Apply lessons learned in collaboration to current practice setting to strengthen comprehensive, collaborative care.
- Identify challenges and advantages to introduction of new disciplines into multidisciplinary team
In order to provide comprehensive care for women who had received a prenatal diagnosis of a congenital anomaly, the Le Bonheur Fetal center opened in Sept, 2009. Following a generic request for child life to supervise the children of expectant mothers during their ultrasounds, the child life team saw the need for more specialized psychosocial services for the expectant family. A Certified Child Life Specialist (CCLS) with prior experience in program development was assigned to the fetal center to assess the needs and initiate services. This began a deeper look into the psychosocial care being provided to this population and ways in which all the disciplines could be utilized to provide support as needed for each unique family.
Framework for the talk:
The presentation will discuss collaboration that begins in the fetal center during obstetric visits, moves into labor and delivery at the nearby adult facility, and then follows with entry into the pediatric hospital. During this journey, families put their trust that all team members are working together to care for their child. To assist in the multiple transitions, child life specialists, in collaboration with nursing, aim to support the expectant family by providing preparation, emotional support, sibling preparation, parental coaching, and bereavement support when necessary. Success is totally reliant upon ongoing communication between all team members and the desire to always do what is best for that family in their unique situation.
The literature reveals a prenatal diagnosis results in anxiety, grief, and uncertainty for the entire family. Whether a prenatal diagnosis is relatively “minor” or a lethal anomaly, ongoing multidisciplinary collaboration allows for individualized care and best practice to be provided for this population. Case studies will illustrate this collaboration.
Implications for practice:
While nursing and child life have worked most closely is developing the communication and collaboration needed to successfully meet the psychosocial care of these patients, all specialties can gain further understanding and respect for the need for psychosocial care in the medical treatment of any population. Learners will be encouraged to consider if all the disciplines within their institution are being utilized to their best potential in collaborative efforts to provide patient- and family-centered care. Although high risk obstetrics is not a population found in every health care setting and child life specialists are not staffed in every institution, the lessons learned in collaboration, communication and patient- and family-centered care can inform all health care providers.