Supervisor - Child Life Services

The Supervisor - Child Life Services is responsible for leading and demonstrating the provision of safe, patient and family focused quality care.

The Supervisor - Child Life Services is a key member of the interprofessional team and ensures that standards for child life care are adhered to at service level.

The Supervisor - Child Life Services works collaboratively with the Child Life Manager to ensure that recruitment, orientation and service development responsibilities are carried out in accordance with Sidra's plans and timelines.

KEY ROLE ACCOUNTABILITIES:

• Makes recommendations to the Manager regarding decisions that have a unit/service impact.

• Makes day to day decisions regarding unit operations that impact staff.

• Makes day to day decisions regarding assessment and interventions that impact patients and families and collaborating staff/colleagues.

• Responsible for maintaining up to date mandatory Life Support Training requirements as directed by MoPH and Sidra (e.g. BLS, AED etc).

Essential Function 1

Oversees, leads, and provides clinical Child Life services

• Utilizes knowledge of child development (neonate to adolescent) and family-centered care to:

• Design and implement child life interventions including age appropriate preparation and education, procedural support, and a range of therapeutic, expressive, and normalizing play experiences.

• Plan and implement teaching and support accordingly.

• Initiates, establishes and maintains therapeutic relationships and rapport with children and families in a high-paced acute clinical setting and paces interventions as necessary.

• Ensures quality care is consistently provided and documented accurately.

• Assesses services gaps and implements action plans and/or directly provides services.

• Reviews current trends and literature to inform future program development and ensure quality, outcome-based services are provided.

• Advocates within the hospital and community to strategically plan for the psychosocial needs of patients and caregivers.

• Ensures child life staff are fully integrated as members of the interdisciplinary health care team.

• Participates in and supports department and hospital wide committees to accomplish strategic goals.

• Continually assesses scope of practice to ensure high level of performance, and facilitates plan-do-study-act (PDSA) processes to improve effectiveness, efficiency, and quality.

• Supervises, develops, and implements programs and activities that apply knowledge of foundations in theories of child development, play, stress, coping, and family systems.

• Actively prepares and shares education with patients and families to improve their care experiences and outcomes through various modalities (written resources, technology, hands on experiences, 1:1 interventions, etc.)

Essential Function 2

Provides direction, oversight, and supervision to Child Life Specialists delivering therapeutic services to patients and Families

• Serves as a professional role model for staff and is an advocate for patients and their families demonstrating behaviors consistent with Sidra values, policies, procedures and guidelines.

• Provides supervision and guidance to staff ensuring that care is provided in accordance with core standards and established policies and procedures.

• Demonstrates competence in all areas of the interviewing, hiring, training, and supervision process.

• Completes all personnel management functions in a timely manner.

• In conjunction with Child Life Services leaders, plans, implements, and conducts employee performance reviews to evaluate job performance.

• Assumes primary responsibility for therapeutic clinical services provided by Child Life Specialists.

• Recognizes staff contributions and accomplishments.

• Maintains accurate personnel records.

• In conjunction with department leadership, plans and implements strategies to improve staff morale, teamwork, and communication to achieve optimal department productivity.

• Provides opportunities for staff to expand their leadership skills.

• Aligns personnel resources, coverage, and schedules to provide optimal services to staff, patients, and families.

• Ensures the effective orientation, precepting and support of new staff and students.

• Supports the retention of staff by creating a healthy work environment that facilitates teamwork, and treats colleagues, patients/families and visitors with dignity and respect at all times.

• Ensures relevant information is communicated to all staff effectively and efficiently.

• Facilitates individual and team meetings with staff to enhance performance and communication.

• Deputizes for the Child Life Services Manager as required.

Essential Function 3

Advance Child Life services, evidence, education, and programming

• Actively pursues opportunities to expand the evidence and literature base.

• Pursues, participates in and leads scholarly activities (publications, research, quality improvement, presentations, etc.) to advance the Child Life profession and best practices.

• Develops and sustains own knowledge, clinical skills and professional awareness and maintains a professional profile.

• Collaborates with the Child Life Services Manager and Clinical Educators in planning, implementation and evaluation of patient/family and staff education.

• Provides education for hospital staff on the principles of child development and family systems to promote effective coping plans, emotional support, and family well-being for patients and families facing a broad range of challenging health care experiences

• Leads department staff growth and development through specialized education opportunities.

• Leads staff and department engagement in professional organization resources.

• Provides direct student program management by:

• Ensuring adherence to Sidra expectations and requirements for students

• Ensuring all requirements and recommendations for Child Life student program set forth by the ACLP are met

• Providing direction to staff to achieve identified student learning goals

• Setting expectations for and organizing all aspects of program

• Adheres to Sidra's standards as they appear in the Code of Conduct and Conflict of Interest policies

• Adheres to and promotes Sidra's Values

In view of the evolving needs and opportunities within Sidra, this position may be required to perform other duties as assigned and reporting relationships may vary.

QUALIFICATIONS, EXPERIENCE AND SKILLS - SELECTION CRITERIA
ESSENTIAL
Education Bachelor's Degree in Child Life or Play Therapy, or Leisure Studies, or Child Development, Child and Family Studies, or Family Centered Care or Human Development or Sociology, or Psychology, or Therapeutic Recreation, or Expressive Arts, or Creative Arts Therapy, or Family Systems, or Social Work, or Early Childhood Education, or Education, or Public Health or Health Care Administration or similarly titled degree; Foundational courses in Child Life, Child Development, and Hospital Play
Experience 7+ years of clinical experience as a Certified Child Life Specialist inclusive of 2+ years leadership experience as a Certified Child Life Specialist or Registered Hospital/ Health Play Specialist in a pediatric setting.
Certification and Licensure

• Child Life Specialist Certification (CCLS) via the Association of Child Life Professionals (formerly Child Life Council, Inc); or Healthcare Play Specialist Education Trust (HPSET) Registration; or Registered Hospital Play Specialist (Reg HPS) via the Hospital Play Specialists Association of Aotearoa/New Zealand (Inc.)

• Eligibility for Licensure in the State of Qatar

Professional Membership Member of the Association of Child Life Professionals (ACLP), National Association for Health Play Specialist (UK), and/or Hospital Play Specialist Association (NZ)
Job Specific Skills and Abilities

• Ability to effectively supervise staff and through positive leadership skills and provide consistent and supportive feedback for personal and program improvement

• Ability to function as a collaborative member of the interdisciplinary team and communicate and advocate for patient/family needs within this team

• Demonstrated knowledge of best practices in Child Life

• Strong interpersonal, organizational and presentation skills, as well as an ability to communicate effectively within a team, across disciplines, and with patients and families

• Effective teaching, mentoring, and supervisory skills

• Experience in organizing data and generating thorough, accurate, timely reports

• Experience with Clinical Information systems

• Proficiency with Microsoft Office suite

• Fluency in written and spoken English