Child Life Director at The Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital Elected to International Child Life Council

Friday, June 30, 2006

NEW BRUNSWICK - Barbara Gursky, MA, CCLS, director of the Child Life Program at The Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Hospital at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, has been elected president of the Child Life Council, the international organization for child life professionals.  Ms. Gursky will serve a three-year term that includes one year as president-elect, one year as president and one year as past-president.

Child Life is a rapidly growing profession of specialists who attend to the psychological and emotional well-being of hospitalized children.  Helping children adjust to being in the hospital is crucial because how well they adjust can affect recovery.  There are currently 4,000 Child Life Specialists in the United States and Canada, up from approximately 1,000 in the mid-1990s, according to the Child Life Council.  The growth of the Child Life field - largely unheard of outside large, metropolitan hospitals until recent years - has been fueled by the expansion of pediatric hospitals throughout the country, as well as from a growing awareness of how a child's psychological well-being can contribute to recovery.

Ms. Gursky, who earned an undergraduate degree in psychology from Penn State University followed by a master's degree in child development from Montclair State University, was the only child life specialist on staff when she started at RWJUH in 1990.  The Child Life Program at The Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Hospital at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital has since grown to become one of the largest in the New York-metropolitan area with 12 child life specialists, a nurse and a librarian.  The Program, which provides day-to-day activities such as therapeutic play, art therapy, pet therapy and music therapy, helps prepare children psychologically for medical procedures, helps them understand their diagnoses, and provides emotional support for both patients and families.

The Child Life Department at The Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Hospital also offers a Family Teaching Program and a Family Resource Center for patients and their families.  The Family Teaching Program is designed to ease the fears of a child's surgical experience by teaching them about their upcoming surgery and hospital stay through age-appropriate hands-on activities and medical play.  The Family Resource Center is a library filled with pediatric medical literature for families, current books and magazines for children, and Internet-ready computers.  A librarian is available in the Family Resource Center to assist parents researching their child's disease or condition.

The Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Hospital at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital is New Jersey's largest free-standing, state-designated acute care children's hospital. The hospital, under the clinical leadership of UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, serves the health care needs of children from New Jersey and beyond, bringing the full spectrum of comprehensive pediatric specialties and subspecialties and nationally-recognized services to pediatric patients.

Attention members of the media: For more information on this release, please contact the Department of Public Relations (732) 937-8521.


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