Bakersfield, California
Lovington, New Mexico
Bakersfield, California
Puyallup, Washington
Austin, Texas
Berkeley, California
Boulder, Colorado
Bakersfield, California
Renton, Washington
Moreno Valley, California
Fresno & Modesto, California
Los Angeles, California
Northern & Central California, California
Downey, California
Posted: 02-May-26
Location: Denver, Colorado
Internal Number: R16593
We're with you for life’s journey. At Denver Health, purpose isn’t just something we believe in-it’s something we live every day, for life’s journey.
Our Values
Respect | Belonging | Accountability | Transparency
Department
Child Life ProgramWhy This Role Matters
As Colorado’s leading safety-net health system, Denver Health serves a diverse community and provides essential care to those who need it most. In this role, you’ll make a meaningful impact every day-helping children and families cope, heal, and thrive through some of life’s most challenging moments.
What You’ll Do
You’ll support pediatric patients and families by:
- Providing therapeutic and developmental play to reduce stress and anxiety.
- Preparing children for procedures using age-appropriate education.
- Offering family and sibling support during hospitalization.
- Supporting coping through illness, injury, or grief.
- Collaborating closely with care teams to ensure holistic, patient-centered care.
Why You’ll Love Working Here
- Meaningful impact: Be part of a mission-focused, safety-net environment that truly changes lives.
- Experience: The diversity of experience, range of clinical needs, and cultural and social family backgrounds provides valuable learning, especially for those newer to the career.
- Engagement: The Child Life team is one of the most highly engaged teams at Denver Health!
- Dynamic setting: Be part of a fast-paced pediatric emergency team.
- Career growth: Access strong professional development, education support, and advancement pathways.
- Supportive culture: Collaborate with a multidisciplinary pediatric care team.
Job Summary
The Child Life Specialist I ("Specialist") is is a key member of the pediatric healthcare team. The Specialist, under general supervision, works in a health care setting focusing on the emotional and developmental needs of children and their families.
The Specialist reduces stress associated with the health care experience and enables a child and their family to cope by providing play experiences, presenting medical information in a way that children can understand, and encouraging family involvement in the child's medical care.
The Specialist routinely works in collaboration with a multi-disciplinary healthcare team and other professionals in ambulatory care, emergency care, and inpatient settings.
*** Inpatient Pediatric & Peds ICU: Wednesday to Friday 10:30am-6:30pm
Whole House: Saturday 8am - 4pm.
Essential Functions:
- Clinical Interventions: Develops a plan of care including interventions to address the needs of the child and family.
• Family and sibling support: Utilizing a family-centered care approach to ensure the patient and family’s individual, cultural, and social needs are met and to provide developmentally appropriate education and support to other children in the family to help them cope with a family member in the hospital.
• Preparation and procedural support: Provides psychological preparation to children prior to undergoing medical procedures using expressive/medical play and other techniques to minimize stress or fears related to medical procedures.
• Developmental/Therapeutic play: Uses normative and/or therapeutic play opportunities to encourage expression of feelings, process difficult events, explore positive coping skills, promote a sense of mastery and understanding of health care experiences, and to minimize stress associated with health care experiences.
▪ Recognizes the developmental issues specifically related to healthcare experiences.
• Diagnosis education: Utilizing developmentally appropriate language to explain a new diagnosis, injury, illness, or death.
• Grief support: Providing memory making and legacy building items, developmentally appropriate education and resources for families, and facilitating bedside visits.
(50%) - Communication:
• Monitors the child’s reaction to hospitalization and provides the staff with timely information to supplement the health care services to the child.
• Consults with family and staff to ensure clear communication and that the best interests of the patient are consistently met.
• Provides education regarding the scope of child life services, the impact of health care on development, providing developmentally appropriate and emotionally safe medical care, and professional boundaries.
(15%) - Assessment:
• Assessing the patient’s current developmental level and providing interventions to enhance development.
• Completing Psychosocial Risk Assessment in Pediatrics to evaluate and mitigate pediatric medical traumatic stress.
(15%) - Charting:
• Documents services in patient chart.
• Updates documentation as care plans change.
(10%) - Supply Management:
• Selects and maintains program materials related to the Child Life role including but not limited to both developmental & normative toys/items, distraction items, and technology.
(5%) - Volunteers/Student Management:
• Supervises volunteers and others participating in the Child Life Program.
(5%)
Education:
- Bachelor's Degree required.
Work Experience:
- Two years of experience as a Certified Child Life Specialist in a hospital setting is highly preferred.
Licenses:
- CCLS-Certified Child Life Specialist - ACLP - Association of Child Life Professionals required or eligible for CCLS certification.
- BLS-Basic Life Support (BLS/CPR) - AHA - American Heart Association required.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
- Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
- Child Life-Intermediate of knowledge and expertise of normal human growth and development. With intermediate skill set to provide clinical child life interventions to decrease medical trauma/stressors within a medical setting.
- Communicating - Communicating effectively orally and in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience, express or exchange ideas by verbal communications.
- Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
- Customer Service -Familiarity with the principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
- Developing Objectives and Strategies - Establishing long-range objectives and specifying the strategies and actions to achieve them.
- Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships - Developing constructive and cooperative working relationships with others and maintaining them over time.
- Organizing, Planning, and Prioritizing Work - Developing specific goals and plans to prioritize, organize, and accomplish your work.
- Problem solving - Entry level ability to systematically analyze problems, draw relevant conclusions and devise appropriate courses of action.
- Psychosocial Support - Entry level skills in the ability to assess the psychosocial needs for children and their families and implement appropriate interventions to mitigate psychological trauma and provide emotional safety.
- Technology - Familiarity with technology platforms, for example: Apple Products (ipad) & the Microsoft Office Suite (Excel, Word, PowerPoint)
- Thinking Creatively - Developing, designing, or creating new applications, ideas, relationships, systems, or products, including artistic contributions.
- Time Management - Managing one's own time.
Shift
Days (United States of America)Work Type
Regular (0.75 FTE)Salary
$53,300.00 - $74,600.00 / yr (Pay range listed is for 1.0 full-time equivalent (FTE). See Work Type for actual FTE)Benefits
At Denver Health, we take care of the people who take care of our community. Our benefits are built to support your life, your family, and your future - with generous paid time off, fully paid parental leave, exceptional retirement contributions, comprehensive health coverage, and nationally recognized well-being programs. We invest in your growth through tuition assistance, career advancement pathways, and professional development - while also offering meaningful financial advantages through loan forgiveness eligibility and employer contributions. When you join Denver Health, you’re joining a mission-driven organization that invests in you.
Here is a small list of our benefit programs:
Paid time off starting at 28 days per year, inclusive of vacation, personal/sick, and 7 Holidays
100% paid parental leave up to 6 weeks
Immediate eligibility for retirement plans with employer contribution up to 9.5%
Generous medical, dental, vision plans in addition to employer paid disability and life insurance.
Comprehensive well-being programs including on-site employee fitness center located on Denver Health main campus and nationally recognized RESTORE Center
Free RTD EcoPass (public transportation)
Childcare discount programs & exclusive perks on large brands, travel, and more
Tuition reimbursement & assistance
Education, coaching, and professional development opportunities through the Workforce Development Center (WFDC) that support internal career growth and advancement pathways
Professional clinical advancement program & shared governance
Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) eligible employer+ free student loan coaching and assistance navigating the PSLF program
National Health Service Corps (NHCS) and Colorado Health Service Corps (CHSC) eligible employer
About Denver Health
Denver Health is an integrated, high-quality academic health care system considered a model for the nation that includes a Level I Trauma Center, a 555-bed acute care medical center, Denver’s 911 emergency medical response system, 10 family health centers, 19 school-based health centers, Rocky Mountain Poison & Drug Safety, the Public Health Institute at Denver Health, Denver Health Medical Plan and Denver Health Foundation.
As Colorado’s primary, and essential, safety-net health care system, Denver Health is a mission-driven organization that has provided millions in uncompensated care for the uninsured each year.
Located near downtown Denver, Denver Health is just minutes away from many of the cultural and recreational activities Denver has to offer.
Denver Health is an equal opportunity employer (EOE). We value the unique ideas, talents and contributions reflective of the needs of our community. All job applicants for safety-sensitive positions must pass a pre-employment drug test, once a conditional offer of employment has been made. Applicants will be considered until the position is filled.