Child Life Internship

 

When I first started college I knew that I wanted to be a Recreation Therapist AND and Child Life Specialist. Since I am a planner I had a plan on how I was going to do it. As much as I would like to, my plans don't always work out (most of the time for the better) and there were ups and downs and plenty of plan changes. As I learned more about the professions and requirements I was better able to plan out how I wanted to complete this goal. Over the years there have been several requirement changes to both professions making it more difficult to complete and at times I wanted to give up and be happy with one but I still knew that I always wanted to do both. My senior year I found out there are programs that let you complete both internships at one time! Golden! This was perfect for me! I could complete my goal and do it efficiently! :) I spent 10 months perfecting every single word on my applications. I sent them in and within a week all of them had contacted me and let me know they were not offering the dual internship program anymore. My whole plan dissolved and I had no direction. Thankfully that is when the internship at NIH came together. For so many reason I know that is where I was supposed to be. As happy as I was at NIH and loved doing Recreation Therapy there I was told if I wanted a job in pediatrics I need my Child Life certification. So I went to work researching over 30 Child Life programs. Trying to find ones that I qualified for and were available when I wanted them. I came up with a good number of them but felt like I need to find a couple more to apply to. I made it seems like countless phone calls trying to find an internship that would work for me. I decided to call Vermont Children's Hospital even though they didn't have any information about an internship on their website. After a several phone calls to them I finally got through and they asked me if I would be interested in applying for the internship in January. I had already missed the deadline for the January internship by two months so I was not expecting it at all! I was just planning on working whatever job I could find until May when the Child Life internships began. If I could complete my internship starting in January I could take the certification test in May and start looking for a real job! Also if I completed it by May I wouldn't have to take an extra Child Life class. So I submitted all my information in I feel like record speed, especially since there was a hurricane that hit the east coast two days after they asked me to apply and everyone was out of the office for a few days. Then I waited an agonizing two weeks to hear back from them with an interview request and the next week that I did in a hotel room in Portland Oregon the day before my brother's wedding. And the next week we played phone tag but I finally got the call and was ACCEPTED!!!! I was so thrilled and accepted immediately! They said I could think about it if I wanted but I had enough time to think, I just needed to jump through the hoop of a Child Life internship so I could work with the population I really wanted. I am so blessed this internship worked out perfectly with my life right now. So I'm off to a new adventure at Vermont Children's Hospital!