International Conference Scholarships

Funded by Disney, ACLP provides International Conference Scholarships to enable international recipients to attend the Child Life Annual Conference.

International Scholarships cover the following:

One-year ACLP membership
Cost of registration for the conference
Up to five nights lodging at the conference hotel
Round-trip airfare up to $1,800 U.S.
Stipend of $250 USD to help toward incidental expenses such as meals, taxi, etc.

The award process will look most favorably on professional practitioners or administrators in a position to be able to introduce, or greatly enhance, psychosocial care consistent with Competencies & Standards in their respective parts of the world. Applicants must have proficiency in English, as it is the official language of the conference.

Applications are encouraged from any healthcare professional outside of the United States and Canada (individuals from Puerto Rico and American Territories are encouraged to apply) who have an interest in the psychosocial care of children.

Not Currently Accepting Applications

Criteria

Applicants must be a citizen in a country outside of Canada or the United States (citizens of Canada, the United States are not eligible). Individuals from Puerto Rico and American Territories are encouraged to apply.

The ACLP Awards Committee welcomes all interested parties to submit an application; however, applicants meeting one or more of the following criteria may be given priority in the scholarship evaluation process:

Applicants who are in a position to introduce, or greatly enhance, psychosocial care consistent with child life best practices and principles at their facility.
Applicants who have recently learned about the field of child life/pediatric psychosocial care.
Applicants who have not previously had the opportunity to participate in an ACLP conference and who do not have the support of a comparable professional organization in their country.

Not Currently Accepting Applications

Expectations for Scholarship Recipients

All applicants must discuss this opportunity with their supervisor and determine eligibility to attend the conference in advance of the scholarship being awarded. Contact information for the appropriate authority at the applicant’s place of employment must be included on the application and is subject to confirmation.
Scholarship recipients are responsible for checking their health/medical insurance to ensure adequate coverage while visiting the United States. In the event of a medical emergency or medical treatment, ACLP cannot assume any liability regarding the provision or cost of healthcare services.
Scholarship recipients are responsible for obtaining any travel visas required by the United States and any other country visited in transit.The recipient must pay for any associated costs themselves.Scholarship recipients are required to attend all five nights which is the allotted number of days given to them per the scholarship.
Scholarship recipients are required to attend an educational session (including the opening and closing keynote) in each time slot that such sessions are conducted and to attend all conference-wide networking and official social functions.
Scholarships will cover registration fees for all sessions mentioned above (if applicable), along with covering the actual cost of round-trip economy-class airfare up to but not exceeding $1,800 USD; up to 5 nights’ accommodation in the official conference hotel, and a small stipend to cover meals and incidentals not provided by ACLP during the Annual Conference. Fees for visas, baggage, and transportation to/from airports will not be covered.
Recipients will make air reservations through the ACLP headquarters office. There are no exceptions unless approved by ACLP staff.
Recipients will be responsible for providing a photograph and a current bio.
After the conference, recipients will write a 300 to 600-word essay about the practice of, and/or prospects for, child life in their country and about their attendance at the Annual Conference. This report will be shared with the ACLP Board of Directors and may appear in the ACLP Bulletin or on the ACLP website.

2024 International Conference Scholarship Recipients

Aemish Fatima - Pakistan

Ifeoluwa Adeoti - Nigeria

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My name is Ifeoluwa Adeoti. I am a medical doctor from Nigeria. I completed my medical education at Donetsk National Medical University, Ukraine, and earned a Master's in Paediatrics and Child Health from the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health, London. Currently, I work at Children Specialist Hospital in Ilorin, Nigeria.

My first exposure to play in hospitals was at the LEGO Idea Conference 2019 on Playful Parenting. All healthcare professionals at the conference had a discussion session titled: 'What the Doctors Ordered,' during which we discussed the impact of play for children in the hospital and how little time we allocate for it.

Subsequently, as a student at UCL, I was a play volunteer at the Student Union club: UCL Student Hospital Fun Team. In this role, I visited Whittington Hospital with other volunteers to bring play therapy and entertainment to the children in the pediatric wards.

I am the founder of Dote on Children Health Foundation (DCHF), an NGO where we focus on medical and play outreaches to children. We have visited close to a hundred orphanages across Nigeria.

At DCHF, I am currently coordinating the DCHF Hospital Play Project, which aims to make hospital stays more pleasant for children and their caregivers, helping children cope and providing a sense of normalcy even during illness. In this project, we are working to promote a culture of play for children in the hospital. We have designed our first play space and equipped it with toy materials and plan to replicate this in other hospitals that treat pediatric patients in Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria.

Among many other things, I enjoy traveling, but volunteering for children is my passion.

Meenu Wadhwa - Australia

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Hello from the sunny Brisbane. For me, it has been more than three decades of working closely with children, young people, and their families in India, New Zealand and Australia. Sounds so old, right?

In my past life, I was an educator. Having a skill set to make a developmental assessment and supporting children's learning as per their learning style and pace helped make a smooth transition into the role about sixteen years ago. During this phase, I provided intervention support to pediatric patients and families under general surgical, orthopedics, oncology, burns and plastics, dental and maxillofacial, high observation units, and children's emergency department. After moving to Australia in 2022, I had the opportunity to lead a year-long pilot project to introduce the role of a Child Life Therapist (CLT) in Queensland. The good news is that the service received its due recognition, and the role has become permanent. While I'm pretty pleased with the outcome, the more significant challenge lies ahead: strengthening the service and growing a team of CLTs.

Whether when I was an educator or now when I am a CLT, my focus has always been to provide all children with inclusive opportunities to learn, play, and participate in their care. I am equally passionate about promoting the profession's growth by highlighting the value added by the role to paediatric healthcare. I am a registered Hospital Play Specialist and have been on the executive board of professional bodies in New Zealand and Australia. As Queensland State Rep, I am considering taking up leadership tasks and responsibilities to promote the profession. I'm excited to have the opportunity to attend the ACLP Conference 2024 and look forward to initiating international networking and connections for continued professional growth.

Sushma Gopalan - India

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My name is Sushma Gopalan, a Counselling and Clinical Psychologist. I have completed my Doctorate programme in Clinical Psychology and hold a double Master’s degree in Genetics and Counselling Psychology. I also hold a Post Graduate Diploma in Mental Health, Certified in Guidance and Counselling, Child development, a certified Gatekeeper in Suicide Prevention, and a Life Skills Trainer. I’m currently pursuing Post Graduate Diploma in Child Rights and Law.

I have pioneered and lead the Child Life Services Team. The bigger vision of this first in India- unique program is to bridge the gap between physical health and mental health. This visualization realises itself with its mission of providing every child who comes to the hospital with psycho-social care for their wellbeing, whilst they undergo lifesaving treatment. Hand holding caregivers through procedures and emotional upheaval is imperative in the mission. I believe that my vision and mission is critical in sustaining positive wellbeing in challenging situations.

My role involves management of emergency, trauma cases in Pediatric ICU by providing brief solution focused strategies for mental distress, hospital-related fears, and building emotional resilience in children and for their families while admitted for cancer, bone marrow treatments and other conditions.

I ensure that our team also provides mental health support to children and family by educating, preparing and supporting them through their hospitalisation, difficult tests and procedures related to chronic or acute illness. We also support the special needs of children and their families, and devise plans that provide children and families with opportunities to engage in normal play and recreational activities that promote growth, development and feelings of success and fulfilment.

I also supervise challenges of children in IPD and OPD dealing with somatic disorders, stress, anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicidal ideation and other challenges along with providing family support and therapy. We handle issues associated with grief, trauma, bereavement, PTSD and PPD in addition to depression, stress, anxiety, adolescent stressors, suicidal ideation, self-harm, body image issues, substance abuse, addiction, and somatic disorders.

My team deals with various psychological issues by incorporating Talk Therapies like, Supportive psychotherapy, Play Therapy and Mindfulness therapy along with Relaxation Techniques which benefit not just the children, but the family too. This involves steering family and group therapies to mediate chaotic relationships, bring insight and lead to harmonious environment. There is also child and family counselling, planning, interventions, and implementation of coping strategies for families to function better as a unit especially in cases of families with special needs children or family discord.

My ultimate goal is to ensure that every child and family steps out knowing they have been cared for and any challenge, big or small, is addressed.

Swati Sheth Mehta

Jodie Cannell - Australia

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My name is Jodie Cannell, I currently work as a Child Life Therapist at the Children’s Hospital Westmead, Sydney Australia. Since I started working at the Children’s hospital five years ago I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to work across a variety of clinical areas. These areas include Long Term Ventilation, CPAP, Orthopeadics, Vaccination clinic, Oncology, Burns and Plastics, Cardiac and the ‘Home in the Hospital’ program - an emergency response program providing essential social admissions for children impacted by parental hospitalisation during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Three years ago I found my ‘niche’ when I began working within the Emergency Department (ED) and Children’s Short Stay Unit. This is both a highly rewarding and challenging area of work, unique to any role I had undertaken previously. I thrive in the fast paced environment and I find that I continue to learn new things everyday. I am deeply aware of the blessing it is to be able to sit with a family during a moment of crisis and heightened stress, and offer support to mitigate the potential for hospital related stress and anxiety.

I have a passion for advocacy, particularly around Emotionally Safe practice, the provision of play and play based education, and the Childs Voice within the ED. I am fortunate to work within a strong multi-disciplinary team, where I have the opportunity to not only ‘grasp teachable moments’ in the day to day work of a busy environment, but also through the provision of intentional adult education around the role of Child Life Therapy and why emotional safety in our health care system is so vitally important!

I am very thankful for the opportunity to attend the 2024 ACLP Conference, where I look forward to the many opportunities to learn, grow and reflect, whilst building connections with the international Child Life Therapy community.

Victoria Hechter - Australia

Yi Yang - China

2023 International Conference Scholarship Recipients

Asma Nhaeed - Pakistan

Asma Naheed (1)

Hello! I'm delighted to introduce myself, I am Asma Nhaeed a PhD fellow in clinical psychology and a dedicated professional in the Psychosocial Department at Indus Hospital & Health Network Karachi Pakistan. for the past 5 years, I am passionate about palliative care, end of life care, grief counseling, bereavement care, and legacy building. My journey started as a palliative care counselor, and over the years, I have had the opportunity to take on the role of heading the Psychosocial Department. As I continue to deepen my knowledge and expertise in this field, I am now planning to pursue specialization in Thanatology or end of life care education. I am driven to further my understanding of the emotional and psychological aspects of end of life care, and to develop advanced skills that will allow me to provide the highest level of care to patients and their families during this challenging time. In addition to my clinical work, I am also actively involved in research related to palliative care, end of life care, and psychosocial well-being. I believe that research plays a crucial role in advancing the field of palliative care and improving the quality of care provided to patients and families. I am excited about the opportunity to contribute to the knowledge and practice in this area through my ongoing research endeavors.

I am grateful to be a part of the Psychosocial Department at Indus Hospital, where I can pursue my passion for palliative care and end of life care, while also making a meaningful difference in the lives of patients and families facing difficult times. I am committed to furthering my education and expertise in this field, and I am excited about the possibilities that lie ahead as I continue to pursue my specialization in Thanatology or end of life care education.

Thanks

Carmen Casingena - England

Kalisiti Ndamanywa - Uganda

Kalisiti NDAMANYWA Photo (1)

I am Kalisiti Ndamanywa, a Ph.D. student in project planning and management, an administrator at Busitema University in eastern Uganda, the initiator and volunteer of the Child play program at Mbale Regional Referal Hospital, dedicated to child play in a hospital to improve their well-being and health while in the hospital. for the past 2 years, I have volunteered on weekly basis to meet children on their bedsides to help them find happiness and joy while in the hospital. I am also passionate to work with healthcare providers to be child-friendly. As I continue to acknowledge the role of play programs in child hospitalization well-being my knowledge and experience in this field, I am now planning to write a curriculum for the child life program at Busitema University faculty of health sciences to be incorporated among our programs. I am further driven to work with professionals in this field to understand more emotions and psychological aspects that come along with hospitalization through introducing a center of excellence in child life service in Mbale Regional referral Hospital and the entire of eastern Uganda, as this will help me develop more skills that will allow me to provide the highest level of care to children and their families during the time of hospitalization. In addition to my position at Busitema University, I believe the child life program can be furthered more to have child life professionals trained in this service. I am excited about the opportunity to learn more and connect with other child life professionals and centers to understand how they do it better to help me establish the center at Mbale regional referral hospital to contribute to the knowledge and practice in this area.

I am grateful to be a part of the participants of this conference and very hopeful that attending this conference will change the whole picture of the play program at Mbale Regional Referal Hospital.

Thank You

Kirsty Nauth-Misir - Australia

Linda Goldberg - South Africa

Nafisa Dawood - Pakistan

Sarah Scott - Australia

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I am currently working as a Child Life Therapist at The Children's Hospital, Westmead in Sydney Australia. It is a tertiary paediatric hospital, the biggest in the state and is part of the Sydney Children's Hospital Network. I have worked in our statewide Burns Service for over 7years, working with our outpatients, inpatients and our outreach service within our Multi-disciplinary team. This work obviously has a heavy skew towards procedural preparation and procedural support as key, daily interventions and I enjoy using my developmental knowledge, passion for play and skills in teaching to tailor these interventions to suit every child we meet. The power of non-pharmacological strategies combined with meaningful relationship and rapport is rewarding to be part of. I have co- authored our statewide Child Life Therapy in Burns Clinical Guidelines and and am interested to extend my work into research.

In addition, I work as the Co-Head of Department for Child Life and Music Therapy which involves both management and leadership responsibilities as we continue to grow our team.

Previously, I have worked in a range of clinical areas such as PICU (Paediatric Intensive Care Unit), Long Term Ventilation Unit and Respiratory working specifically with patients with Cystic Fibrosis.

I am also lucky to be currently holding the role of State Representative for New South Wales in the Association of Child Life Therapists Australia.

I value the concept of life long learning and acknowledge the continued growth to come in all my roles. It is an incredible opportunity to attend this years conference and be part of this community of learners.

Tamta Mchedlishvili - Georgia

2022 International Scholarship Recipients

Atoofa Najmi

Kristina Silfvenius

kristina-silfvenius-photo
I come from Helsinki, Finland, and have worked at Helsinki University Children´s Hospital as a Child Life Specialist. Where I participated in founding Child Life Specialists I Finland.

As a Rotary Foundation Scholar, I spent a year working at Vancouver Children´s Hospital in Canada at the Child Life Department and studied special education at UBC, University of British Columbia.

In 1987 I moved to Stockholm, Sweden and work at Astrid Lindgren Children´s Hospital, Karolinska University Hospital. Here I was on the board for Child Life Specialists in Sweden for many years.

I have been working with diverse diagnoses, with in- and outpatients in all age groups, helping children and adolescents preparing them for different kinds of procedures, and helping to promote coping strategies and minimizing the adverse effects of hospitalization and health care encounters. Providing interventions that include therapeutic play, expressive modalities, and psychological preparation to facilitate coping and normalization.

Now I mainly work with the burns patients in the outpatient clinic, and as inpatients, and I´m part of the burns team.

Within the hospital and outside I actively promote and inform about Children’s Rights according to the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, that is a legal right in Sweden since Jan 2019.

In 2015 I joined Operation Smile and have had the opportunity to go on 12 missions in different parts of the world as a Child Life Specialist. The last mission was in Oujda, Morocco. A fantastic opportunity to promote children´s rights.

I have been part of the medical adviser board for Operation Smile Sweden and now a Psychosocial Advisor on the Psychosocial Medical Advisory Council (MAC) Operation Smile International.

Madiha Mustafa

Maryam Al-Bahar

Nicola Mooney

Priscila Flores Carrillo

priscila-flores-carrillo_photo
I’m Priscila, I was born and grew up in Quito - Ecuador, I have 28 years old. I'm Nursing Assistant, Occupational Therapist and Child Life Professional. I studied my degree of Nursing Assistant and my degree in Occupational Therapy in Ecuador, and I graduated from Master Child Life in Barcelona - Spain. In my hospital practices I worked with children, adolescents, and their families, also, with children with special abilities, others apparently healthy, also populations with various diseases and disorders.

I was volunteer in a dialysis clinic, and after I started to work in the same, with young patients, adults and older adults, also in gerontological centers, and home therapies, I have always tried to transpose what I studied in therapy and in my master, provide beneficial psychosocial care for all my patients, trying to work in all spheres of children and in other patients, providing quality care for their emotions with tools such as games, music therapy, art therapy, clown therapy, correct education of illness, among other resources, for adequate empowerment and coping with the circumstances to which must be faced.

Today due to the critical situation worldwide, in the absence of opportunities to work in the public and private sector in my country, I decided to open my rehabilitation clinic, where I provide my services to the child, adolescent, adult and elderly population. In my treatments I always to apply the Child Life principles, giving priority to emotions, feelings and spirituality, to start from an empathic and compassionate therapy.

In addition, Occupational Therapy and Nursing are professions that can be combined with Child Life Profession, and for me this is very positive, because I can make my three professions merge, with the objective of providing better structured and higher quality services to infants, adolescents and their families and other patients.

Sara Costa

Sonia Tordera

I am Sonia Tordera and I am 25. I am one of the four professionals working on the Child Life program in Barcelona Children’s Hospital. This program is working since 2004 and we are the only program in Spain. I graduated in Psychology in 2012 and afterwards I studied the master degree on its first promotion on Emotional Care in Hospitalized Children according to the Child Life model also in Barcelona.

After that I started as a volunteer in playrooms and waiting rooms in Barcelona Children’s Hospital and join in a siblings camp in Ireland with the Barretstown foundation. I keep collaborating with the hospital in Patient Experience projects as a volunteer and it was then, in October 2017, when I started working in the already created Child Life program. Since then I have learnt a lot from my colleagues and I worked in many areas of the hospital. I am working on psychological preparation before surgeries and medical procedures (cardiology, autism patients, cochlear implant and patients in bone marrow transplant) and accompanying during medical procedures when its needed. I also collaborate with patient experience projects improving families experiences.

The other big part of our job is coordinate and work together with the friendly hospital program and professionals which includes all the resources related to keep children being children in the hospital: school, hospital clowns, art, animal assisted therapy team and musicians. My goal is to keep going on and spread our profession as much as we can. I would really love to make this dream and project bigger as we can make the hospitals a better places in all the places we can.

2021 International Scholarship Recipients

Priscila Flores Carrillo

priscila-flores-carrillo_photo
I was born and raised in Quito - Ecuador and I am 28 years old. I'm a Nursing Assistant, Occupational Therapist, and Child Life Professional. I studied my degree of Nursing Assistant and my degree in Occupational Therapy in Ecuador, and I graduated with a Masters of Child Life in Barcelona, Spain. In my hospital practices I worked with children, adolescents, and their families, also, with children with special abilities, others apparently healthy, also populations with various diseases and disorders.

I was a volunteer in a dialysis clinic, and after I started to work with young patients, adults, and older adults, also in gerontological centers, and home therapies, I have always tried to transpose what I studied in therapy and in my masters program, provide beneficial psychosocial care for all my patients, trying to work in all spheres of children and in other patients, providing quality care for their emotions with tools such as games, music therapy, art therapy, clown therapy, correct education of illness, among other resources, for adequate empowerment and coping with the circumstances that must be faced.

Today, due to the critical situation worldwide, in the absence of opportunities to work in the public and private sector in my country, I decided to open my rehabilitation clinic, where I provide my services to the child, adolescent, adult and elderly population. In my treatments I always to apply the child life principles, giving priority to emotions, feelings and spirituality, to start from an empathic and compassionate therapy.

In addition, Occupational Therapy and Nursing are professions that can be combined with the Child Life Profession, and for me this is very positive, because I can make my three professions merge, with the objective of providing better structured and higher quality services to infants, adolescents and their families and other patients.

Nicola Mooney

Kristina Silfvenius

kristina-silfvenius-photo
I come from Helsinki, Finland, and have worked at Helsinki University Children´s Hospital as a Child Life Specialist. There I participated in founding Child Life Specialists I Finland.

As a Rotary Foundation Scholar, I spent a year working at Vancouver Children´s Hospital in Canada at the Child Life Department and studied special education at UBC, University of British Columbia.

In 1987 I moved to Stockholm, Sweden and worked at Astrid Lindgren Children´s Hospital, Karolinska University Hospital. There I was on the board for Child Life Specialists in Sweden for many years.

I have been working with diverse diagnoses, with in- and outpatients in all age groups, helping children and adolescents preparing them for different kinds of procedures, and helping to promote coping strategies and minimizing the adverse effects of hospitalization and health care encounters. Providing interventions that include therapeutic play, expressive modalities, and psychological preparation to facilitate coping and normalization.

Now I mainly work with the burns patients in the outpatient clinic, and as inpatients, and I'm part of the burns team.

Within the hospital and outside I actively promote and inform about Children’s Rights according to the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, that is a legal right in Sweden since Jan 2019.

In 2015 I joined Operation Smile and have had the opportunity to go on 12 missions in different parts of the world as a Child Life Specialist. The last mission was in Oujda, Morocco. A fantastic opportunity to promote children´s rights. I have been part of the medical adviser board for Operation Smile Sweden and I am now a Psychosocial Advisor on the Psychosocial Medical Advisory Council (MAC) Operation Smile International.