Child Life Internships

Internship Accreditation Seal Agreement

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

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, evidence based practice (EBP) presentation, child life talks, 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, and weekend and holiday experiences may be required. The interns are also required to work a holiday which is either Easter, July 4 or Thanksgiving. 

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 and supervisor 
  • Objectives established by the student's academic department
  • Completion of all required assignments

Click here for additional internship information 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 during the internship. If you are an independent student then, please do not submit an 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. At least 50 of these hours must be completed at the time you are applying for the internship program. The entire 100 hours Child Life Practicum must be completed by the start of 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 ACLP. This course must be completed by the start of the internship. 
    • Have successfully completed an ACLP Eligibility Assessment, showing all 10 required courses by ACLP accepted, with one being the child life course taught by a certified child life specialist. All required courses must be completed by the start of the internship. 

  • How to Apply

    Click here to complete the online application to complete the online internship application.  

    • Within the application you will also attach:
      • Current one page Resume (Do NOT submit more than one page) 
      • A one page Cover Letter explaining why you have chosen to apply for this internship site and what qualities you for this internship
      • Documentation of the ACLP Eligibility Assessment Report showing all coursework as "passed." 
        • If the required courses are not all "passed" on the report and completed at the time of applying to the internship then the candidate must submit a Child Life Course in Progress and/or Additional Courses in Progress form. All 10 required courses must be completed by the start of the internship. 
      • Documentation of a 100-hour Child Life Practicum completed under the supervision of a Certified Child Life Specialist using the practicum verification form
        • If the Child Life Practicum is not completed at the time of applying to the internship then the candidate must submit a Practicum in Progress form. At least 50 of these hours must be completed at the time you are applying for the internship program. The entire 100 hours Child Life Practicum must be completed by the start of the internship.
      • Unofficial University transcripts from all Universities. The intern will be asked to submit Official Transcript if/once selected as an intern at this site. 

    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

    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 FaceTime to conduct the interview.

    The 2020 interview dates are below:
    February 8, 2020
    May 4, 2020
    October 6, 2020

  • 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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