Child Life Specialist

Serious illness affects everyone in the home, including the children who are watching it unfold. They notice the whispered conversations, the closed doors, the changes in routines. They may not have the words to ask what is happening, but they feel the worry in the room.

Meanwhile, you may be thinking, “How do I explain this without scaring them? What do I say if they ask if someone is going to die? What if I say the wrong thing?”

AlēvCare Hospice
is the
only hospice
in our service area with a full-time
Child Life Specialist
. This role exists for one reason: to support children and teens when serious illness or loss touches their world.

Get Specialized Support for Children and Teens
Call to speak with our hospice team

Kids and teens experience serious illness differently from adults. They may:

• Overhear medical words they don’t understand
• Fill in the gaps with their own (often scarier) stories
• Worry they caused the illness or could “catch it”
• Act out, withdraw, or seem “fine” on the surface while hurting inside
  At the same time, parents and caregivers are stretched thin—trying to manage appointments, emotions, and everyday responsibilities while protecting the children they love.

A Child Life Specialist bridges that gap, giving young people language, tools, and safe places to process what is happening.

Our Child Life Specialist is a specially trained professional who focuses on the emotional and developmental needs of children and teens in the middle of serious illness and grief.

At AlēvCare Hospice, this support includes:

• Age-appropriate education about illness, hospice, and death
• Therapeutic play, art, and activities to help express feelings
• Preparation for visits, changes, or difficult moments, like seeing a loved one in a hospital bed
• Support before and after a death, including grief follow-up
• Collaboration with the hospice team so care for kids and teens is integrated, not an afterthought

This role is not required by Medicare and not reimbursed by insurance. We fund it because it is the right thing for families.

Our Child Life Specialist works with:

• Children and teens, roughly ages 4 through early adulthood
• Siblings of patients
• Children and teens who are children or grandchildren of the patient
• Other young family members closely connected to the person who is ill

Support can happen in your home, in a facility where your loved one lives, alongside parents, grandparents, or other caregivers, or one-on-one with the child or teen when appropriate, and every interaction is shaped around the child’s age, personality, and comfort level.

Parents and caregivers often tell us, “I don’t know what to say,” or, “I’m afraid I’ll make it worse.”

Our Child Life Specialist supports you, too, by:

• Suggesting what to share now and what to save for later
• Coaching you for difficult conversations or questions
• Offering ideas for maintaining connection, even as illness progresses
• Providing resources and activities you can use between visits

You remain the most important person in your child’s life. We simply give you tools so you can walk through this with more confidence and less fear.

Visits are designed to feel safe, gentle, and natural, not clinical or forced.

• Playing with toys, drawing, or using art supplies while talking about what is happening
• Using books, pictures, or simple explanations to talk about illness or death
• Practicing what to expect when visiting a loved one who looks or acts differently
• Creating memory items like handprints, letters, or photo projects
• Checking in on how school, friendships, and daily life are being affected

Children do not have to sit still,…