At UPMC Harrisburg, UPMC Children’s has a 72-bed inpatient unit staffed with child life specialists, physicians, and nurses, focused on caring for newborns through young adults with a range of medical needs – from surgical to critical care and everything in between.
This article is sponsored by UPMC Children’s in Central Pa.
Our child life specialists use play and expressive arts to help meet the developmental, psychosocial, emotional, and educational needs of our pediatric patients. You will find them supporting patients throughout the hospital – in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), imaging, outpatient infusion center, lab, emergency department, and in preparation for surgery. Regardless of where they are, these experiences and opportunities help children to cope and adjust to illness and hospitalization.
Sandy Schreffler, a lead child life specialist at UPMC Children’s in Harrisburg, shares, “We use play, preparation, and emotional support to reduce fear and anxiety during medical experiences. From explaining procedures in child-friendly ways to providing comfort through tough moments, our role is empowering kids and families and facilitating positive coping and emotional resilience in the hospital environment. With the right amount of preparation and coaching, kids can cope well with the hard things that happen in the hospital, and the coping skills they learn here can be used in other situations in their lives,” she explains.
“Play itself is how kids process the things that go on. By providing normative play experiences as well as those opportunities for self-expression, we can help kids cope much more positively,” she adds.
The child life specialists visit the child in the room and use Austin’s Playroom, a child life area on the dedicated pediatric floor, to help the child through its time in the hospital. Austin’s Playroom offers space for the child, parents, and siblings to play and learn. It’s filled with games, activity tables, iPads, and more for toddlers, school-age children, and teens to help provide comfort to patients and families.
Watch this video to take a tour of UPMC Children’s in Harrisburg and see the child life area. You can also visit UPMC.com/CPAHospitalPediatrics to learn more about the inpatient care and children’s services available in central Pa.
