Previously recorded
Upedia webinars
Explore timely topics, gain insights from content experts, and earn PDUs to advance your career. Don’t miss these impactful learning opportunities!
Previously recorded
Previously recorded webinars
August 19th, 12-1pm
Cassie Camara
*Comfort Across the Lifespan: How Child Life Techniques Support Adults & their families at the End of Life
Cassie Camara is a Certified Child Life Specialist and the Coordinator of the Andrea’s 3 Wishes Program at The Hamilton General Hospital. Prior to Cassie’s role at the Hamilton General Hospital she worked as a Certified Child Life Specialist at McMaster Children’s Hospital for 9 years in both inpatient and outpatient setting. Cassie has a strong passion for expanding the reach of child life services beyond the traditional pediatric environments. Cassie advocates for integrating child life principles into adult care setting. Her innovative approach aims to provide comfort, coping strategies and a holistic support to patients and their families across the life span, ensuring that therapeutic interventions are inclusive and tailored to the individual she is supporting creating more compassionate and comprehensive care environments.
Fall 2021
Barbara Rubel, MA, BCETS, D.A.A.E.T.S
Compassion Fatigue and Resilience Among Child Life Specialists and Health Care Professionals
This webinar will focus on ways to mitigate the impact of job burnout, secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma. Child Care Specialists will understand a framework that strengthens their positive coping methods. Objectives: As a result of this webinar, participants will be able to: 1. Describe compassion fatigue and various trauma 2. Describe eight ways to mitigate the impact of compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma 3. Identify character strengths to build personal resilience Barbara Rubel, MA, BCETS, D.A.A.E.T.S. is an author and keynote speaker on increasing skills and strengths that improve the ability to handle job burnout, secondary traumatic stress, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma. She received a BS in Psychology and MA in Community Health with a concentration in thanatology from Brooklyn College and is a Board-Certified Expert in Traumatic Stress. Her website is www.griefworkcenter.com Support by Air Canada Foundation
Fall 2022
Dr. Jenny Chabot
Manage Ambiguous Loss: Finding Meaning & Validation in the Many Losses of Hospitalization.
Ambiguous loss (AL) can involve death and non-death related losses. According to Pauline Boss, "with ambiguous loss, there is no closure; the challenge is to learn how to live with the ambiguity." This presentation will discuss the key principles of ambiguous loss, and family stressors where AL has been linked. It will also provide an overview of the presenter's research, and the main themes identified through her interviews with child life specialists (n=33) who reported AL in patients, parents/caregivers, siblings, and in themselves/staff. Implications for child life practice will be examined.
March 19th, 1-2pm EST
Krista Naugler, Upopolis National Program Manager
Child Life Month Feature- Upopolis: The Research, The Community and The Transition
Join Upedia for a free webinar in celebration of Child Life Month. Krista will share research related to online patient communities, discuss how Upopolis both the community and programming has evolved over 15+ years, and explore with the audience what Upopolis has to offer youth today.
Recording 2021
Jo-Anne Robertson MPH
Keeping the Babies in Mind; Infant Mental Health and Child Life
This webinar will review of the fascinating topics of infant mental health and early brain development. Child life professionals working with infants, toddlers and preschoolers will have the opportunity to consider implications of these concepts in their practice. Video examples, time for questions and answers, and opportunities for reflection will be provided. Jo-Anne Robertson MPH, is a former certified child life specialist who worked in both the USA and Canada with chronically ill children of all ages. Later she began therapeutic work in the community with young and vulnerable families and their preschool children. After receiving her Master's of Public Health with a focus on early child development as a social determinant of health, she has been able to pursue her passions of infant mental health and optimal early child development at a population level.
Recording 2022
Erinn Pinard, MSc. CCLS, CYC and Akila Dada, CCLS, OCT, MSc. Candidate
Mental Health Matters: Spotlighting the Role of Child Life Services; supporting children and youth living with eating disorders
This webinar explores the perfect storm created between Covid-19 and a rising eating disorder population. Two Child Life Specialists will reflect on their patient population, changing role, creative interventions and daily activities that showcase a unique skill set of Child Life Specialists within a Children’s Hospital.
Recording 2022
Laura Breau M.A., CCLS, CIMI-2
Child Life Strategies for Supporting Autistic Children and Youth
Join Laura Breau, M.A., CCLS, CIMI-2, as she shares practical tools and tips to support Autistic children and youth during health care experiences.
Recording 2023 or prior
Eleanor Haley, M.S. and Litsa Williams, MA, LCSW-C
Helping Grieving Families through Ritual and Continuing Bonds
In 1996, Klass, Silverman, and Nickman shed light on an important bereavement concept in the book Continuing Bonds: New Understandings of Grief. Their work questioning linear models of grief that are supposed to lead to things like acceptance, detachment, and new life suggested a paradigm in which it is normal for the bereaved to continue their bond with the deceased. This webinar will review the theory and research surround children’s normal grief reactions and grief/re-grief across developmental stages. It will offer practical tools for applying continuing bonds theory to both direct work with children, as well working with families to lay a foundation and framework for coping with grief as a family unit in the coming months and years.
Spring 2024
Tara Noble MSW, RSW
Demystifying MAID: How to support children & families through hard conversations
This webinar will promote an understanding of MAID, what it is, how it works, and the idea of dying with dignity. This can be a challenging issues that can lead to confusion, fear and worry within a family. Participants will explore their own views/biases/worries and develop concrete strategies for difficult conversations with children and families. In addition, participant will learn how to address misconceptions, conflicts and worries family members face as they prepare for MAID. Together, we will explore how open and honest communication can lead to families experiencing a healthy and positive end of life journey with a loved one.
