Child Life Wild Life
Jessica Lewin, CCLS & The Child Life Mentor, sits down with Certified Child Life Specialists, students, and professionals to talk about topics surrounding the field of child life. Come and gain tangible next steps and confidence as you learn how to use your child life skills, protect your mental health, and glean inspiration, hope, and ideas. I'm so happy you're here!
Child Life Wild Life
The Wild Life of Family-Centered Care and Sibling Support with Caitlin Wolf
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Certified Child Life Specialist, Jessica Lewin, talks with friend and CCLS, Caitlin Wolf, about her work in pediatric hematology/oncology, and how she prioritizes siblings through thoughtful interventions and family-centered care practices. With passion and creativity, she shares practical strategies for maintaining crucial connections between patients and siblings during lengthy hospital stays or repeated admissions.
From digital picture frames that allow photo sharing between hospital and home, to decorated name letters that give siblings ownership over a piece of the hospital environment, Caitlin demonstrates how even simple interventions can profoundly impact family cohesion. Her approach to recordable storybooks creates meaningful bonds that persist through treatment - and potentially beyond if a patient faces end-of-life circumstances.
Perhaps most striking is Caitlin's nuanced understanding of the ethical challenges surrounding diagnosis disclosure. While advocating for transparency and developmentally appropriate honesty, she respects the ultimate authority of parents to make decisions for their children. "Our job is to meet them where they are and walk with them through it," she explains, highlighting how child life specialists must balance professional guidance with family autonomy.
For both seasoned professionals and students entering the field, Caitlin's insights illuminate the importance of developing your own authentic practice style rather than mimicking others. Her journey reminds us that in child life, the wildest experiences often become our greatest teachers. Whether you're supporting families through pediatric cancer treatment or any healthcare journey, these strategies for sibling inclusion will enhance your practice and honor the whole family system.
You can follow Caitlin on Instagram at @caitlinwolf_.
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you know just this like main priority of how do we keep them connected to each other while they are going through this really difficult time of separation . We think a lot about the attachment between the patient and the parents , right , which is so important and crucial . But also , you know , there's other children at home whose lives are flipped upside down too .
Welcome to Child Life Wildlife Podcast
Speaker 2Welcome to the Child Life Wildlife Podcast , a platform dedicated to sharing the honest ins and outs and vulnerable truths about the child life profession . With your host , jessica Lewin , come and gain tangible next steps and confidence as you learn how to use your child life skills , protect your mental health and glean inspiration , hope and ideas from fellow certified child life specialists , students and professionals . And now here's your host , jessica Lewin .
Speaker 3Hello
Meet Caitlin Wolfe, HEMOC Specialist
Speaker 3and welcome to the Child Life Wildlife Podcast . Today I have on the show Caitlin Wolfe . She is a child life specialist that works in a hematology oncology unit , working pretty directly with siblings . She is really great at doing assessments , understanding different family dynamics and pulling in siblings when that's appropriate . She has great interventions . She has different tools and modalities that she uses to do all of these things for siblings and really really empower this sometimes forgotten demographic . I really hope that you can pull some inspiration from all the goodness that she brings to this episode .
Speaker 3So , without further ado , here is my conversation with Caitlin Wolfe on supporting siblings . Hi , caitlin , thanks for joining me on the Child Life Wildlife podcast . Hi , thanks so much for having me . I am excited for this conversation today about siblings and supporting them and all the things . But before we get started , I'd love to take a second and get to know you a little bit better . So if there's anything that you'd like to share with me and my listeners fun facts , anything about you , how you got your start in child life the floor is yours .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah . So I have been a child life specialist for about three years now .
Speaker 1I went initially to school to become a physician and I was like I'm not doing that and just realized I wanted more of the relationship-based work than what I was seeing when I was shadowing physicians . And multiple people mentioned child life to me and I was at first first too much in my like college crisis . I don't know what I want to do . Moving forward to hear it . But then , once I was open to it , was definitely interested and you know what ended up going to graduate school and getting my master's degree . And here we are . So let's see . I live in northeast Ohio . I have a two and a half year old golden doodle named Winston , who is my heart and soul , and I am very close for it to be fall outside , like all of my windows are open . I am not a summer girly , so I'm excited for the fall .
Speaker 3Yes , me too . I very , very much feel that . So let's dive a little bit deeper into some of your clinical experiences prior to coming into as a child life specialist . So your practicum , your internship , and how did you feel like those impacted your future as a child life specialist ?
Speaker 1Yeah , so I did my practicum and my internship at the same hospital , which you know can be a little controversial around the child life world . But my practicum was incredible in that I got to see every child life specialist in the department for like two to three days and so , rather than being in you know two longer rotations or however they're typically set up , I got to see everyone and I and I really feel like that gave me a great platform , a great foundation to stand on , getting to see child life across the entire hospital and getting to see a lot of different people practice . So I really loved that experience and then moved to my internship after doing two rounds of applications . So it doesn't always happen on the first try and that's okay .
Speaker 1And I did my internship and did rotations in the pediatric ICU and then outpatient hematology and oncology , and starting in the PICU as an intern is terrifying . I was terrified but I'm so thankful looking back that I had that experience . It really was trial by fire and you know when we're thinking about siblings , because in the PICU a lot of times patients are so sick and intubated and sedated or just not well enough to engage . So much of child life support is with families and with siblings . So that was really my first deep dive into family support and sibling support in the ICU and I just came to really love it . And I don't know , I don't feel like I learned a ton about it in school . I didn't go to a child life program , so it just was a really different side
Prioritizing Siblings in Healthcare
Speaker 1of child life that I wasn't familiar with .
Speaker 1And then when I moved to outpatient hemat , a lot of times those patients I was meeting , you know , halfway through their treatment journey or , you know , towards the end , and so really got a chance to talk to them about what was helpful , what wasn't helpful , you know how did different psychosocial services support their family and their other children throughout their journey . So I just I just feel like I had a really good , really good exposure to this in my clinical experience and really got to see the siblings of these campers process through what it's like to be a sibling of somebody with cancer and what's that like , what things can they bond and relate to each other with with those experiences , and so that was cool to kind of see the outside view of it too . You know you're not meeting them in the hospital , but they're in a semi-normal environment , you know dancing around and singing songs at camp but also having those really intimate conversations .
Speaker 3Yeah , wow , it sounds like you had a lot of experiences that were geared towards siblings . Like when you said PICU and HEMOC , I was like those are pretty , you're going to see a lot of siblings in those units . So yeah , so did that kind of give you an idea of where you wanted to end up ? Like , talk a little bit about your current role now as a certified child life specialist , and how does this role , compared to other departments , emphasize that sibling support ?
Speaker 1I always knew I wanted to end up in HEMOC . I just was drawn to that population , but I told myself I wasn't going to do it until I worked a full year doing something else . I wanted to get my feet wet . I didn't want to jump in to something that felt really , you know , like it can be very emotionally heavy . And then about five months into my first job , the HEMOC spa opened up and so I was like like , okay , this feels like it's meant to be , and so I shimmied right over there and just have been really thankful to be in that role now for about two and a half years .
Speaker 1And what I love about the department that I work with is that we really focus on the entire family , and so we we have a specific committee , a specific program that's geared towards siblings , and so we do a lot of things under that umbrella . We send a newsletter out every quarter , and my favorite part of the newsletter is that we highlight
Therapeutic Activities for Siblings
Speaker 1siblings of our current patients . And so I have questions that we get to you know , kind of interview the siblings about their experience and what do they feel when their sibling is in the hospital and what would you tell other siblings that are going through this and it's been a really , you know , more structured way of interviewing these siblings and getting insight from their families as to how we can support them now and what what support looks like moving forward while they navigate treatment and so .
Speaker 1I really love that we do programming throughout the year that are different events that are specific towards siblings and their families and hosting time for them to be together . That's not in the hospital . That's not centered around treatment , that it's just space for them to be a family and for them to be together . That's not in the hospital . That's not centered around treatment , that it's just space for them to be a family and for them to be together , which I just think is so important when these families lives revolve around treatment and being in the hospital , and you know all of those things .
Speaker 3Yeah , is that newsletter something that you came up with yourself ? And like do you handle all that ? What does that look like ?
Speaker 1no . So our sibling committee is made up of child life , music therapy , art therapy , psychology and social work , so it really is , you know , across the board psychosocially .
Speaker 1So we all kind of tag team and work together on it and take , take different roles as we go . But I feel like the child there's me and then my outpatient counterpart who works in our infusion center , and I feel like we kind of take the lead on interviewing those siblings , partially because we see them , but also it's because it just gives us a really great opportunity to talk with them and do kind of like a backdoor intervention ?
Speaker 3Yeah , yeah , definitely . So digging a little bit deeper the newsletter , all the things what has prioritizing siblings looked like for you and your professional experience ?
Speaker 1I think it's taken me a while to get you know my feet under me and building that into my assessment when I meet families and when I support them through their missions , but it really is such an important piece of the support that we provide . You know , a lot of times when I'm in conversations , when the physicians disclose a diagnosis , the first question is how are we going to tell the patient ? And the second question from families is how are we going to tell the siblings ? And so you know , seeing that over and over again , it's like , yeah , this is . They are a crucial part of this and the work that we do . So it's hard to say , like you know , I can't . I don't have like a here's X , y and Z and this is how I do it . But I have had to be very mindful of making sure to put the part not only of my , like , initial assessment but also of my support as we go . I think it's really easy to focus on you know who's in front of you , but thinking about who else is at home too .
Speaker 3Yeah , yeah . I think that's something that a lot of child life specialists can struggle with is that if those kids aren't present , it can almost seem like out of sight , out of mind . I'm not really thinking too much about the kids at home , or I forget to ask about it and yeah . So just being mindful and making sure to make that a part of your spiel to parents , understanding who's at home and how they're feeling about things , especially if it's a new diagnosis . Absolutely Moving into the next question I have , is , you know , thinking about this demographic as almost like the forgotten kids that we forget about ? What activities or goals have you felt are most well received by this population , and do you have any examples of therapeutic activities that you like to do with siblings ?
Speaker 1Yeah , so I actually , just alongside some of my co workers , received a grant to work on some legacy work with our long term patients , and so I get to use it in HEMAC , which is incredible , and a lot of the things that we have ordered and , you
Navigating Difficult Conversations with Families
Speaker 1know , pursued with that grant have focused on the siblings , and so we got digital picture frames to have in the patient's room and then at home with the siblings so that they can send pictures back and forth to each other when they're separate , and so you know just this like main priority of how do we keep them connected to each other while they're going through this really difficult time of separation .
Speaker 1We think a lot about the attachment between the patient and the parents , right , which is so important and crucial . But also , you know , there's other children at home whose lives are flipped upside down too , and so the digital picture frames have been really , really wonderful . We ordered some recordable storybooks , which have been really fun to use . There's one that's called what I Love About you , or All the Things I Love About you , and it essentially prompts the person to go through and identify .
Speaker 1You know , I love when we do this together and this is my favorite part about you and you know , I think , that it can be used in so many different settings , not only to support connection , you know , during a long admission , or you know that separation from each other , but also you know the patient could use it if you know they're at end of life and you know could risk and create this for their sibling that the sibling can have even after the patient has passed . And so I just , you know , wanted to focus on not only the connection but also how do we create space for them to bond to each other and connect to each other even if we're not together ?
Speaker 3Do you have names of like companies that you've gotten those things from , like the digital frames or the books ?
Speaker 1I do , but I don't have them off the top of my head . So I will send them , I can send them to you .
Speaker 3That'd be great , and then I'll include it in the show notes for anybody who's interested . Are there any other specific interventions that you can share that you've done with siblings ? Yeah ?
Speaker 1So I started when I know that a patient is going to be admitted , you know , either for a long time or I have a lot of patients that come in for multiple days every week and they go home in between that . I've started printing out blocked letters of the patient's name and then I send them home with the family to have the siblings decorate them and color them , and when they bring them back to the hospital I laminate them and then hang them on their door every time they're admitted .
Speaker 2And .
Speaker 1I love it because not only does it give the sibling , you know , a piece of the hospital that they have some ownership over and control over .
Speaker 1But also , you know , I had a mom tell me once the patient was a teen with a five yearold brother who came every night to visit and , uh , there was one time that I forgot to hang the letters on the door , and so when I saw them the next day she was like , uh , caitlin , like he was asking about his letters on the door , like he looks forward to seeing them every time he's here . And so , you know , I think often I'm like let's think of this like grand thing that we can do to help make them feel included in what's going on . But it doesn't have to be grand , it really can be like five letters that they color and I hang it up on the door .
Speaker 1And that makes so much of a difference , you know . And then it's cool for families to walk down the hallway and see all these different kids with their letters on , you know , on their doors that are decorated differently , and again it doesn't feel like this big grand , you know , this big grand thing , but it makes a difference , absolutely .
Speaker 1I've also done , you know , because we see patients that come from all over the world really I've done lots of virtual education with siblings and so , whether that's like a FaceTime or a video call , we , you know , have done a lot of support that way to teach them about what's happening and talk with them about what's going on . I also have created specific books for siblings . That's geared towards you know their siblings treatment and their admissions and what that's going to look like . You know if I can get insight from family about what the siblings like to do together , or you know what they enjoy doing with their family . I do my very best to help integrate that into their experience , even in the hospital .
Speaker 3What program do you use to make like the little storybooks about that ?
Speaker 1I just use Canva .
Speaker 3Canva God , I love Canva .
Speaker 1Yeah , me too . It's amazing , yeah . So every sibling is different , every patient is different , and I think to assessing siblings and their knowledge looks different for every , every family , and a lot of times you know , when they get an oncology diagnosis , the parents will stay with the patient in the hospital , and so then it's not the parents actually who are at home with the sibling .
Speaker 1And so I've often had to talk with you know , if grandparents come to visit or if aunt and uncle comes to visit with the sibling . Those are the insightful people about how those siblings are doing right now , and so just pulling information from as many people as you possibly can , especially when they're not in the hospital , to make sure that what you're doing is , you know , helpful for that specific sibling , because they're all different .
Speaker 3Yeah , have you ever , especially working in HEMOC , have you ever had a parent not want to share , like their , the patient's diagnosis with the siblings ? And how has that gone ? Yeah , absolutely it happens all the time . Really .
Speaker 1Yeah , I think it happens with patients too . I think , at the core , parents want to , you know , protect their children , and this is not something that anyone ever expects to happen . And I think too a lot of times it's so hard , even for us as adults , to understand , you know , different types of cancer and treatment and what their world is going to look like , because no one's ever lived it before they have to , ever lived with before they have to , and so , as child life specialists , we are educated and trained on , you know , having these conversations . At the end of the day , we have to trust that the parents are doing what is best for their family and you know they are the ones that are going home and living their life even after , you know they leave us at the hospital . And so , as much as we can advocate for honesty and transparency and , you know , developmentally appropriate education , which I do advocate for that , it just sometimes doesn't happen .
Speaker 1And so I always tell families , you know the medical team's job is to lay out all of the information that they know and give you their best recommendation for how to treat your child , and my job is to lay everything out on the table of what I know to be true about your child and you know their siblings , and what I know about their development and what I have seen be helpful for other families , and then we will walk with you through whatever decision you decide to make . You know , regardless of whether or not you know , it follows our recommendation . Our job is to meet them where they are and walk with them through it . So it's tough . It's tough , you know , morally and ethically , and I think as child life specialists , we are like we just want to help . Let me help you , yeah , but sometimes that's just not something that they want right away or ever yeah and that is just something I think I'm still .
Speaker 1We're still like I don't know that I'll ever get used to it .
Speaker 3To be honest , yeah , it's an uncomfortable thing about the job , but I really like the way that you phrase it to people , because I think that that gives them a better understanding . It's not like you're coming at it from like well , I know best type of thing . It's like comparing it to the medical doctor's knowledge and like your child development knowledge of like this is my job , but regardless of what you choose , I'm still going to be here and walk through it with you . I think that that's a really gentle way to put it and hopefully still leaves that door open that if they eventually change their mind and they're like , hey , actually maybe I should say something they know the person to go to . So yeah , yeah absolutely .
Speaker 1I always talk about how you know the physicians are the experts in the medicine and you know we are the experts in child development and how the hospital impacts those things , and and how to educate kids about what's happening while they're in the hospital and the parents are experts of their children and so you know they have a full seat at the table and they are the deciding factor of what we do . Yeah , moving forward it .
Speaker 1sometimes it takes , you know . I had a preceptor tell me in my internship . Sometimes , you know , you'll check in 99 times and they will say no every time , and then you'll hit time 100 and they will be receptive to what you have to say , and so I just hold that . I hold that , you know , while I'm working alongside these families , especially when they're resistant yeah , that you know . Maybe it's the 37th time or the 112th time you know that they are like actually , yes , I do , you know , let's , let's talk about that .
Speaker 1I would love some help navigating this .
Speaker 3Yeah , that's a really good point . Well , Caitlin , I think we're ready for the closing questions that I ask everyone . So the first question is if someone's listening and really resonating with what you're saying about gaining comfortability with siblings ,
The Child Life Journey and Closing Thoughts
Speaker 3what's one piece of advice that you'd give to help this person prioritize supporting siblings better ?
Speaker 1One thing that I would suggest , especially working with older patients , is to include them on the conversation about their sibling . I have a lot of teenagers and young adults who have one , two , three , four , five younger siblings , and I love to get their perspective on how their sibling is doing . What have you noticed about them and how they're doing with all of these changes ? What conversations have you had about what's going on with your body , you know ? Have your siblings asked questions to you that you're like ? I have no idea how to answer that .
Speaker 3Like I don't even know the answer Again .
Speaker 1As much as the parents are the experts , so are the patients , and they live with their siblings day in and day out , and so .
Speaker 1I like to take that angle , not only because they can give me such unique insight on how their siblings are doing , but it also kind of helps me know , okay , not only are you , you know , coping with this in the hospital , but also you're coping with it when you go home and you know maybe your siblings having a hard time , and so that's another layer to you know what kind of support we can offer .
Speaker 3Yeah . Yeah , that's a good answer . I do have a lot of students that follow along and listen to this podcast , so what is one thing that you'd say to them as a general tip for moving through this profession ?
Speaker 1I would say that your child life . I'm going to talk about your child life journey . Your child life journey does not and will not look like anyone else's , and that is totally okay . I think you know we all take such different paths to get to certification and then we all practice so differently when you get to bedside and you know we all have the same goal and everyone's going to be so different in order to say practice , and that is totally okay .
Speaker 1I think as a student , I felt a lot of pressure , like I have to do this exactly the way that my preceptor is doing it I have to use their wording , I have to mirror exactly what they're doing , because they are the professional and that's you know and that's like dynamic and I had someone tell me once like no , no , like you pick and choose what you see of , like oh , I could feel comfortable saying that or maybe I would phrase it this way and you kind of like , kind of like lego pieces , yeah , um , that you like , pick and choose and you build your own style .
Speaker 1I think comparison is so woven into the entire child life world . I was like , well , that person got an internship first and this person , you know it takes them five times to get an internship . It just is so ingrained in the whole process and it doesn't . In my experience it does not stop once you get certified and you are working full time . But I just think it's so important for us to remember that we're all on the same team and we're all you know working towards the same goal , and so it's okay if it looks different .
Speaker 1It's supposed to look different from everybody else . Yeah , yeah , you know it's supposed to be your own journey , so that's .
Speaker 3That's a very good point that I hope a lot of students listen to , because it is very easy to become cookie cutter or to feel like you need to become cookie cutter in this profession in order to make it . And so , yeah , just taking little bits and pieces of what different people say and putting it into your spiels but not verbatim , you know it's going to look like how you would say it .
Speaker 1Yeah , right , well , and at the end of the day , too , it's like you are your own human with your own personality and that is going to be such a big piece of who you are , you know , in your role as a child life specialist and like being cookie cutter , is just not the way to go because it's not going to be natural and you'll just burn yourself out trying to be something you're not and then the last question I have is , if child life is a wild life , what has been the wildest part of your experience so far ?
Speaker 1So when I retired on the inpatient teams I work on right now about I don't know three weeks later , the entire inpatient team left .
Speaker 1So people like moved to a different job , had a baby moved to a different job , had a baby move to a different area of the hospital , and before I knew it there's , like you know , baby child life specialist Kate , three weeks in with one other person to cover the entire hospital and it was wild .
Speaker 1It was wild but honestly , just the best experience as a new grad going in to my first job , like trial by fire and I had to just be comfortable saying like I don't know , I don't know what that's like and I don't know how to do this , and asking for help . But yeah , everybody left three weeks in . I was like , oh my gosh , I'm still not ready for this In the moment . It was so overwhelming and both of us got super sick and I think it was from the stress and
The Wildest Part of Child Life
Speaker 1the you know just the weight of carrying all of that . But it was like the most growing and I don't know . It just was so helpful to me as I was like I don't know about this and just kind of just thrown in . So , yeah , wild , absolutely wild wild .
Speaker 3It doesn't feel great to have to like just be thrown into a job , but both of my jobs that I have had in the hospital and in the school I was just tossed in and like from weird freak things like that where it was like somebody had a bereavement and then my coordinator was gone and then all of a sudden it turned into Jessica's on her own and it's like that's great . This is my first job , like right , but yeah , in the moment , terrifying in retrospect , that really grew me yeah , such a yeah , such yeah , and like there's .
Speaker 1I feel like that is just like the picture . The perfect picture of child life is like oh , okay .
Speaker 3We're just doing something random , and here we go .
Speaker 1Yes , definitely we're going to . I tell my patients all the time like never , never done this before in either of you . So we're going to learn together and I feel like that was . That was just my mantra for those three months .
Speaker 3Oh , that's sweet . Well , thank you so much , Caitlin , for hopping on this podcast episode and sharing with us all your wisdom about working with siblings . I really , really appreciate you .
Speaker 1Thank you so much for having me .