Description:       

According to the Association of Child Life Professionals “Emotional safety encompasses specialized strategies including atraumatic, patient- and family-centered, trauma-informed, culture-centered, and developmentally appropriate care. These clinical components are woven throughout the four pillars of emotional safety: (a) screening and assessment; (b) intervention; (c) environment; and (d) education, training, and communication.” Join Jenaya Gordon in a presentation that focuses on defining emotional safety, common reactions children and teens have to trauma, and lastly presents trauma-informed, emotionally safe tactics to use with injured patients.

Attendees will be able to: 

• Define the definition of emotional safety as it applies to pediatrics
• List common reactions children and teens have to trauma
• Describe trauma-informed, emotionally safe tactics to use with injured patients

Bios: 
Jenaya Gordon is a Certified Child Life Specialist and is in the new role of Patient Emotional Safety Specialist at Children’s Hospital Colorado. She co-wrote the chapter “Trauma-Focused Medical Play” in the Handbook of Medical Play Therapy and Child Life, is co-author of the training manual Engage-Calm-Distract: Understanding and responding to children in crisis, and authored the paper Emotional Safety in Pediatrics. Jenaya created and taught a graduate course at the Erikson Institute, entitled Trauma-Informed Practice in Child Life.

References:

Association of Child Life Professionals. Retrieved from https://emotional-safety.org/

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System. https://wisqars.cdc.gov/. September, 2024.

Garst, L., Gordon, J. and Peters, E. (2018). Engage – Calm – Distract: Understanding and Responding to Children in Crisis. A Resource Kit for EMS and Emergency Department Providers. Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment.

Gordon, J. (2021). Emotional Safety in Pediatrics [White paper]. Association of Child Life Professionals. https://emotional-safety.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/

National Child Traumatic Stress Network. Retrieved from https://www.nctsn.org/what-is-child-trauma/trauma-types/medical-trauma/effects. November, 2024.