Child Life internship
The Child Life Internship at McLane Children’s Hospital is offered in both the fall and spring semesters and is designed for individuals interested in pursuing a career as a certified child life specialist. Information about certification process, coursework, and eligibility requirements for certification along with career planning information can be found at the Association of Child Life Professionals website.
Internship positions at McLane Children’s are full time (40 hours/week) for 16 weeks. Participating students can expect to gain knowledge in core child life competencies.
Interns are involved in the planning and implementation of developmentally and emotionally supportive programming for infants, children, and adolescents. Students are expected to incorporate play, emotional support, healthcare education and family involvement to enhance the social, emotional, intellectual, and physical well-being of children and families in the healthcare setting.
Interns rotate through different areas of the hospital during their experience. A variety of inpatient and outpatient areas will be offered each semester for student training opportunities in both. Final placement decisions are made at the discretion of the student program coordinators.
Internship Requirements
- Internship students must be currently enrolled in a graduate or undergraduate program affiliated with Baylor Scott & White Health.
- Child life intern applicants must complete the Association of Child Life Professionals course review through the Eligibility Assessment completed prior to beginning to the internship program.
- Applicants must have at least 100 hours of direct experience with typically developing children in individual or group settings.
- Applicants must have completed a minimum of 100 hours practicum experience working under the direct supervision of a Child Life Specialist in a healthcare setting. The practicum experience in a pediatric healthcare setting is a requirement.
- The outlined requirements must be met by the application postmark deadline for the candidate to be considered.
Application information
All required items must be submitted as Microsoft Word or PDF attachments via email to McLaneChildLifeStudentCommittee@bswhealth.org. Any other formatting will make the application incomplete and will not be considered. Paper applications will not be considered. Late, falsified, or incomplete submissions will not be considered. McLane Children’s follows the ACLP internship application deadlines, which can be found on the ACLP website.
The ACLP is launching a new common application in January, you can check out this link for more information.
Completed applications include the following:
- ACLP Common Child Life Internship Common Application
- Professional resume
- ACLP Eligibility Assessment
- Practicum Verification Form
- College or university transcript(s)
- Please send a separate transcript for each institution
- Must indicate cumulative GPA
- Does not need to be official
- Three (3) ACLP reference forms
- Must include one from an academic professor and one from someone who has directly observed and can assess your work with children
- We will accept an electronic version of the reference form emailed directly to McLaneChildLifeStudentCommittee@bswhealth.org
- Must be emailed directly to us from the person writing the reference
- Must include applicant’s name in the email subject line