Description:
Child Life Programs in hospital settings work with patients and their families to
lower stress and educate families about their healthcare experience; however, Child Life
Programs are not available in many medical settings. This project examines the impact of
Child Life Programming from a sibling and parent perspective through a case project
method. In-depth, semi-structured interviews with sibling and parent dyads about their
hospital experiences were conducted with two families. Family Resilience and Stress
Theory and the concept of disenfranchised grief were the theoretical framework and lens
through which this project was conducted. Although there was no way to manipulate the
experiences of the participants, this project illustrates the importance of grief-informed
and developmentally appropriate interventions in a hospital setting for holistic care for
parents and siblings when a family system experiences stress and grief during diagnoses,
treatment and death.