Program Director: Michelle Minyard-Widmann, M.S., CCLS

University of La Verne (1994); Assistant Professor; Certified Child Life Specialist.

Contact Information

Program Director (909) 558- 4547 extension 47072 maminyard@llu.edu

Administrative Assistant for the masters programs (909) 558-4547 extension 47001 bjones@llu.edu

M.S. in Child Life Specialist Degree

The Master of Science in Child Life Specialist is a 65-quarter credit program, which includes a 100 hour practicum and a 500 hour internship. Students are admitted into the program during the Fall and Winter quarters.

Child Life Specialist Profession

Child Life Specialists are experts in the field of child development. They promote effective coping through play, preparation, education, and self-expression activities. Child Life Specialist provides emotional support for families, and encourages optimum development of children facing a broad range of challenging experiences, particularly those related to healthcare and hospitalization. Understanding that a child’s well-being depends on the support of the family; child life specialists provide information, support and guidance to parents, siblings and other family members. They also play a vital role in educating caregivers, administrators and the public about the needs of children under stress.

(Taken from the Child Life Council  www.childlife.org)

Department

The M.S. Child Life Specialist degree is housed in the Department of Counseling and Family Sciences in the School of Behavioral Health.  Masters degree students may choose to combine one or more certificate options with their degree program.  Certificates are offered in the following specializations:  child life, clinical mediation, drug and alcohol counseling, family counseling, family life education, and school counseling. 

Mission and Vision

Courses

CHLS 502 Child Life Seminar
This course will help students develop a child life specialist identity through readings, presentation, discussion of child life history and practice.  Application for student membership in professional organizations, such as the Child Life Council will be encouraged.  Students will review standards of clinical practice using the Official Documents of the Child Life Council.

CHLS 503 Child Life Seminar
The students will develop a child life specialist identity for clinical practice through readings, discussion of clinical practice placements, and case study overview.  Interviewing and applying for clinical placement will be discussed as well as other child life topics.  Students will review standards of clinical practice using the Official Documents of the Child Life Council.

CHLS 504 Child Life Administration and Program Development
This course introduces students to the history and development of the child life profession. Students also learn about the health-care environment, administrative issues, program development, and outcome assessment process. Students learn how to develop competencies and skills necessary to effectively administer a child life program.

CHLS 506 Child Life Specialist: Educational and Therapeutic Intervention
This course is designed to teach the developmental aspects of play therapy in collaboration with the developmental stages of the child/teen and family in the context of a health-care setting. The course will provide the student with an experiential understanding of play therapy, recreation therapy, education, and practice.

CHLS 507 A Child Life Program: Medical Family Issues I
This course is designed to teach the child life student about the childhood disease process and will describe the pathophysiology, symptoms, diagnostic test, and treatment of disease. The student will learn how each disease affects the child and family's behavioral, social, and emotional development and coping strategies.

CHLS 507 B Child Life Program: Aspects of Illness and Disease                                                                                                                                        This course is designed to teach the child life student about the childhood disease process and will describe the pathophysiology, symptoms, diagnostic test, and treatment of disease. The student will learn how each disease affects the child and family's behavioral, social, and emotional development and coping strategies.

CHLS 508 Child Life Program: Medical Family Issues II 

This course is designed to help the student understand the various theories and practice specific interventions that assist hospitalized children/teens or adult family members when they encounter issues of death, loss, and/or grief. Students will be required to examine how these issues affect them personally and professionally. Students will learn to describe their own epistemology regarding death, loss, and grief. Examination of these issues will be with a family system's perspective in a hospital setting.

CHLS 604 Child Life Internship and Supervision I
The student will work with children/teens and families in a hospital and/or related setting under the supervision of a certified child life specialist. The student will be accumulating the 480 hours required for the certificate...Special attention will be given to legal, ethical, moral, educational, cultural, spiritual, and gender issues as these issues relate to their work with children/teens and families.

CHLS 605 Child Life Internship and Supervision II
The student will work with children/teens and families in a hospital and/or related setting under the supervision of a certified child life specialist. The student will be required to complete the 480 hours required for the certificate. Special attention will be given to legal, ethical, moral, educational, cultural, spiritual, and gender issues as these issues relate to their work with children/teens and families.

CHLS 606 Parenting Medically Fragile Children

Students are introduced to parenting issues of the medically fragile infant, child and adolescent.  Theories, techniques, and skills regarding parenting this population will be discussed. Community resources, legal and ethical issues pertaining to this specific group will also be addressed.

CHLS 607                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Students are prepared for entering the professional field of Child Life by demonstrating clinical assessment, documentation, and skills related to child life practice. Applications of ethical principles and professional effectiveness are included.                                

CHLS 608 Child Life Practicum (100-120 hours)                                                                                                                                                               Students carry our assigned playroom duties: supervise activities that foster creativity, divert patients from stress and worry and normalize their environment; and provide opportunities for patients and families to socialize and engage in developmentally appropriate activities. Students assist with bedside interaction and interventions and assist staff with escorting patients to other locations of the hospital for special programming.

COUN 576 Exceptional and Medically Challenged Children
Study of the determinants, characteristics, problems, and adjustments of individuals who deviate markedly from the norm in their mental, physical, emotional, or social aptitudes, traits, and tendencies. Emphasis on education, hospital care, and career planning.

MFAM 501 Research Tools and Methodology I (quantitative)
Current social research methods, practice in the use of techniques, consideration of the philosophy of the scientific method, and familiarization with MFAM test instruments
Prerequisite: An introductory course in statistics as an undergraduate research methods course.

MFAM 515 Crisis-Intervention and Client Centered Advocacy
Experiential course in which theory, techniques, and practices of crisis intervention are presented, with special attention to the development of the basic communication skills of counseling. Areas included which are intended to contribute to the development of a professional attitude and identity is confidentiality, interprofessional cooperation, professional socialization, and organization. Therapeutic tapes also presented covering topics such as death and dying, incest, spousal abuse, and rape. Laboratory required.

MFAM 516 Play Therapy
Experiential course designed for practitioners and graduate students to learn how to apply play therapy techniques in dealing with childhood problems such as molestation, physical abuse, depression, trauma, and family conflict.                                                 

MFAM 528 Culture and Socio-economic Status, and Therapy
Structure and function, changing patterns, future in urban society. Relationship of changes in society to widespread family problems. Familiarity with a wide range of social and ethnic backgrounds including but not limited to people of color, Asians, Native Americans, and Hispanics.

MFAM 547 Social Ecology of the Individual and Family Development
Study of human individual development and its relationship to the family life cycle from birth through aging and death of family members. Biological, psychological, social, and spiritual development discussed in the context of family dynamics involving traditional two-parent families, alternative partnerships, single parents, blended families, and intergenerational communities.

MFAM 553 Family Systems Theory
Review of Bowen theory, theory of family systems. Introduction to family psychotherapy as an outgrowth of the theory. Students examine their own families of origin.

MFAM 568 Group Process Theory and Procedures: Theories in MFAM Therapy
Major theoretical approaches surveyed include individual theories, marital groups, network, and family therapy groups. Group laboratory experience provided wherein students apply theory to practice and develop group leadership skills.

MFAM 584 Advanced Child and Adolescent Development
Psychodynamics' involved in child and adolescent problems with respect to the family relationship. Demonstration of a variety of counseling approaches to the treatment of children and adolescents with emphasis on diverse settings (e.g. education, hospital, and agency)

MFAM 644 Child Abuse and Family Violence
Definition and incidence of physical and emotional abuse, neglect, sexual molestation, dynamics of family violence, and offender and non-offender characteristics. Treatment of children, adolescents, the family, and adults abused as children. Treatment modalities, including individual, group, and family therapy. Ethical and legal issues, referral resources, multidisciplinary approach to child abuse, assessment, interview techniques, and confidentiality.

RELR 568 Care of the Dying and Bereaved or Equivalent
Studies the biblical, theological, cultural, religious, relational, and psychological aspects of dying and death.

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