counseling and family sciences

Loma Linda University’s Department of Counseling and Family Sciences (CFS) was well-represented at the 2019 American Family Therapy Academy (AFTA) Conference in Oakland, California. CFS students, faculty, and alumni were listed as presenters on just under twenty-five percent of the over sixty-five presentations given at this year’s conference.

In February of this year, Director of Clinical Training for the Child Life Specialist Program, Alisha Saavedra, was part of a Students for International Mission Service (SIMS) trip to Baja, Mexico. One of the locations that the SIMS group visited was Door of Faith Orphanage (DOFO) in La Misión.

The MEND (Mastering Each New Direction) team, led by Professor of Counseling and Family Sciences Dr. Brian Distelberg and alumnus Dr. Daniel Tapanes, have developed and implemented a program emphasizing mental health integration with chronic illness.

The Pediatric Brain and Spine Tumor Support Group provides emotional support and functions as a bridge between the medical and emotional needs of the patients and their families. The group was initiated by Dr.

The Child Life Specialist program has a bunch of exciting activities planned in celebration of Child Life Month! March 1 The program has been invited to attend Education Hour with the Child Life staff at Loma Linda University Children's Health. Allie's Helping Hands, a program that helps siblings of chronically ill children, will be presenting.

Over the summer, the Child Life Specialist MS cohort had the incredible opportunity to travel to China to share the concepts of child life internationally and to interact with patients, families, and professionals from a different culture. Throughout the course of our time in China, we traveled to three different hospitals located in Hangzhou and Quzhou.

In Fall 2017, a new educational and training Child Life program was opened to pediatric nurses from the People’s Republic of China. The program was a result of a four-year series of educational exchanges between the Loma Linda University School of Behavioral Health, Child Life Specialist Program, and The Children’s Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine (ZUCH).