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Child Life Internships

Internship Accreditation Seal Agreement

Children's Health clinical internship program has met the minimum standards for a clinical internship program set forth by the Association of Child Life Professionals (ACLP). Children's Health clinical internship program is currently accredited and recognized by the ACLP on their professional website. 

The 600-hour Child Life Internship at Children's Medical Center Dallas provides a supervised, guided learning experience with children. It has been designed to meet your unique needs and allow you to acquire professional child life skills.

Child Life Internships are offered in spring, summer and fall to students attending a university. They’re organized to meet the requirements of the Association of Child Life Professionals (ACLP) certification, to address your specific interests, and comply with your academic institution's requirements. The internship is a 15-week, 40 hour a week, full-time unpaid position that is divided into two, six week rotations with orientation, site visit and shadow weeks in between the rotations.

The basic components of the internship are organized around the child life competencies. As an intern you will

  • Increase your familiarity with hospital policies and procedures by observing child life staff in various settings.
  • Learn about diverse areas in child life by participating in daily student groups.
  • Work in two different clinical areas of the Child Life Department for six weeks each. In these assignments you provide child life services, under the supervision of a certified child life specialist (CCLS), to the patient population served.
  • Participate in multidisciplinary meetings such as patient care conferences and clinical rounds.
  • Complete the following assignments: case presentations, pediatric diagnosis presentation, an intern project, weekly journals and required readings.
  • Attend additional learning experiences to meet specific areas of interest or to address the academic institution’s requirements.

The internship curriculum incorporates child life programming challenges and strategies to further your ability to address current health care issues. You will be given the opportunity to:

  • Build independent professional skills
  • Strengthen your therapeutic group play supervision skills
  • Develop assessment and intervention skills with individual patients

Your clinical supervisor, along with other staff members in the department, provides instruction and guidance. You typically will work the same hours as your clinical supervisor. Additional evening, weekend and holiday experiences may be required.

Students are evaluated based upon the following:

  • Written mid-term and final evaluations using a tool based on the ACLP’s competencies
  • Objectives determined by the student
  • Objectives established by the student's academic department
  • Completion of all required assignments

Click here for an internship information packet

  • Requirements

    To be considered a candidate for a Child Life Internship, you will be required to meet all of the following criteria. You must be enrolled at a university at the time of your application and during the internship. If you are an independent student then, please do not submit application, as no exceptions can be made by our hospital. You also are required to

    • Have a minimum 3.0 cumulative GPA.
    • Have successfully completed a minimum of a 100-hour Child Life Practicum experience under a Certified child life specialist  working with infants, children, youth and/or families undergoing stress and trauma. The child life practicum must be completed prior to applying for the internship.
    • Have completed at least 100 hours of experience with well infants, children, youth and/or families.
    • Have successfully completed child life coursework that included the 6 applied areas of study as required by Child Life Council (CLC).
    • Have successfully completed an ACLP Eligibility Assessment, showing with required courses by ACLP accepted, with one being the child life course taught by a certified child life specialist.

  • How to Apply

    Online internship application will open in December. 

    • Within the application you will also attach:
      • Current Resume
      • Documentation of the ACLP Eligibility Assessment Report showing all coursework as "passed." 
      • Unofficial University transcripts from all Universities 

    Please note that you will need to complete and submit the application at once, and will not be able to save it. Make sure you have all required documents and ready to submit it once you start the online application. 

    In addition to the online application, you must submit:

    • Two completed references forms using the attached form. These forms should be emailed to internshipapplications@childrens.com and should be emailed directly by the person completing the reference forms for you.
      • One reference form must be from an academic professor
      • One reference form must be from your child life practicum supervisor
    • Documentation of a 100-hour Child Life Practicum completed under the supervision of a child life specialist using the practicum verification form. This form should be emailed to internshipapplications@childrens.com and should be emailed directly by the person completing the verification form for you.

    Please contact us at internshipapplications@childrens.com if you have any questions. 

  • Deadlines

    All applications must be submitted by 12 midnight central standard time by the application deadline as specified by Association of Child Life Professionals (ACLP). The recommendation forms and practicum verification form must be emailed by 12 midnight central standard time by the same application deadline. 

  • Interview Process

    After initial application screening, candidates will participate in a short phone screen with a member from the intern committee. We will then select 10 candidates to participate in the formal interview process. At Children’s Health, we conduct Multi-Mini Interviews (MMI) where candidates rotate through 5 stations for 15 minutes at each station and meet with the interviewer individually. Candidates chosen for the interview can choose to come during either the morning session (8am-11am) or afternoon session (12:30pm-3:30pm). Candidates must be available to stay for the entire time on the dates listed below. There will be a group information session and Q&A at the end. While we don’t require candidates who are out of state to come in person for these interviews, we highly encourage it in order to get the most out of the experience. For those who cannot come in person, then we will use Skype to conduct the interview.

    The 2018 interview dates are below:
    February 12, 2018
    April 5, 2018
    September 28, 2018

  • Offer Process

    Children’s Health follows the internship offer date and process from the ACLP, which can be found at www.childlife.org. 

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