Poster Presentations

To earn PDUs for poster presentations:
1. View the poster presentations of your choosing in person at the conference 
2. Scan the QR code below to access the poster presentation quiz
3. By filling out the quiz, you will get credit for the poster PDUs
4. Earn 1.0 PDU per poster*

*PDUs earned from the poster presentations should be added to the PDUs from your overall conference experience certificate which will be emailed digitally after the conference. 

POSTER PRESENTATIONS

“Please Don’t Hurt Me”- Child Life's Role in Zero Harm Initiatives

• Barbara Romito, MA, CCLS, Brandi Handel, MSN, RN, and Melissa Leiby, CCLS
• The Joint Commission suggests that healthcare organizations commit to “zero harm” as a goal towards becoming a high-reliability organization. Patient safety must include both physical and emotional safety measures. While the emotional safety initiative was spearheaded by the child life department the success was in partnering with the hospital’s quality department. This hospital now has a process to track, discuss and improve upon emotional safety events.
• Suggested Domain: Professional Responsibility

Trialing Tetracaine: Child Life’s Advocacy for a Pain Management Tool for NG Placements

• Kathleen McEwen, MS, MT-BC, CCLS II and Jessica Altenberger, MS, CCLS
• This poster presentation will examine the advocacy of child life specialist and the collaborative approach between child life and the medical team to bring an nasal numbing agent as a pain management tool during NG placements. This poster will describe the process from advocacy to implementation as well as impact on patients and families. Collected data will be shared to highlight feedback in the implementation process and opportunities for growth and future research.
• Suggested Domain: Intervention

Clinicians Transitioning to Motherhood While Supporting a Chronic Patient Population

• Gwendolyn Parks, MS, CCLS, CIMI, Nicole Rosburg, MS, CCLS, Sheila Brown, MPS, CCLS
• Transitioning to motherhood is an experience shared by many that can provide challenges and opportunities to clinicians working with pediatric oncology patients and their families. This presentation will offer insight into this unique experience and include examples that demonstrate the effects of this transition on relationships with patients, professional boundaries, and the clinician’s professional identity. The presentation will discuss clinical considerations including self-disclosure, countertransference, and planning for and returning from parental leave.
• Suggested Domain: Professional Responsibility

Outpatient Legacy-building: A Survey of Children’s Hospitals

• Alyssa B. Myers, MS, CCLS, and Kayla Black, MPH, CCLS
• This study evaluates legacy-building interventions offered specifically in outpatient clinic settings through the completion of an online survey. While most respondents reported offering legacy-building opportunities to patients, a fewer number reported offering these interventions to outpatients, due to a variety of barriers. Due to increasing diagnoses being managed outpatient, legacy-building interventions
  should be an essential component of all psychosocial care, both inpatient and outpatient.
• Suggested Domain: Intervention

Persistence of Pain: Do Childhood Healthcare Experiences Influence Adult Pain Tolerance?

• Emily Goldstein, MS, CCLS, and Sherwood Burns-Nader, PhD, CCLS
• This presentation is an examination of a study that analyzed the impact of healthcare experiences in childhood on self-reported pain tolerance in adulthood. College students were asked to self-report their experiences with pain related to healthcare in childhood and their current pain tolerance in adulthood. Experiences with pain in childhood were found to predict adult pain tolerance due to fear and anxiety. This study provides information about how pain can impact children over time.
• Suggested Domain: Assessment

Pilot Program Planning for Children of Cancer Patients

• Kelly Lyons, CCLS
• Child life specialists are uniquely positioned to identify gaps in psychosocial supports and services for children, both inside and outside of the hospital setting. But once identified, it can be intimidating to justify and pursue the implementation of child life programming. This author will walk attendees through evidence-informed program planning methods using a proposed community-based pilot program for children of cancer patients as an example.
• Suggested Domain: Intervention

Examining the utilization of an online platform for youth with chronic illness: A user experience perspective

• Sarah Patterson, MSc., CCLS and Allison Sohanlal, MSc., CCLS
• Chronic illness can lead youth to feel a sense of isolation from their peers or community. A limited number of online health social networking sites have been created with the goal of connecting patients in a safe social space. This research study explores the experience of youth using a social platform designed to build connections for youth with chronic illness.
• Suggested Domain: Intervention

Addressing Diversity Boundaries Through Mentorship in Child Life Academic Programming

• Shelby Strauser, MA, CCLS, Katie Walker, PhD, CCLS, and Belinda Hammond, CCLS, CIMI
• Within the child life field, boundaries exist that inhibit students of diverse backgrounds from having equitable access to success academic mentorship experiences. Students desire guidance, which child life academic programs could acknowledge through mentorship. By offering students the opportunity to connect with a certified child life specialist (CCLS), who aligns in race, ethnicity or life experiences, academic mentorship programming could positively impact the field by increasing the resources available to all students.
• Suggested Domain: DEI (any)

Adolescent Cancer Survivors: A Closer Look at Gender Differences and The Impact of Social Support

• Xavier Sudlow and Katie Walker, PhD, CCLS
• This poster presentation will outline a research study examining three research questions focusing on if procedural and treatment anxiety for ACS was impacted by gender and if social support can positively or negatively impact cognitive challenges for ACS. A total of 37 ACS attending a weeklong oncology camp participated in the study. The findings shed light on the importance of being aware of and mitigating gender bias when performing assessments on ACS in the hospital setting.
• Suggested Domain: DEI (any)