Child Life Practicum Program

The Child Life practicum program at Mt. Washington Pediatric Hospital is 100-120 hours and may be offered three times per year. Students are paired with a Certified Child Life Specialist throughout their placement who provide supervised and guided experiences with children while supporting the development of professional child life skills. The exact time frame of the practicum experience will be determined based on student and staffing schedules.

 

Practicum experiences include:

 

• Patient/Family care interventions

• An introduction to assessments and medical chart documentation

• Observation of outpatient clinic and day treatment programs Meet with staff from other disciplines
  

• Attendance at interdisciplinary rounds

• Weekly assignments 

Program Requirements:

Appropriate fields of study and experience include child life, child development, education, family studies, or related fields. Students are strongly encouraged to become a member of the Association of Child Life Professionals (https://www.childlife.org/).

 

• Applicants must have a minimum of a 3.0 GPA
     
• Applicants must have successfully completed a minimum of 50  hours in a hospital or closely related setting with children and families (i.e., volunteer work, paid work,  or field placement,
  
• Applicants must have at least 25  hours of experience with WELL infants, children, youth and/or families

Application Deadlines and Process:

All interested applicants should complete and submit:

• Practicum applicants should complete the practicum application

• Transcripts from college or university (official or unofficial)
• Resume and two professional letters of reference (one from someone who has directly observed your work with children and one from a professor/academic advisor)

For the Spring semester, we follow the ACLP guidelines for application deadlines and accept all applicants that meet the above qualifications. 

For the Summer and Fall semesters, due to a university student partnership, we will only accept applicants who attend Towson University.

Please return all applications to:

Please submit all applications materials via email to [email protected] with the subject line, "Practicum Application (spring/summer/fall)(year)"

Please note all materials must be submitted by email, including letters of reference.

 

If you have any questions regarding our practicum program or application requirements, please send an email to [email protected].