The Behavioral Safety Team and Child Life: Providing collaborative support for patients during appointments
The Behavior Safety Team (BST) is a consult service offered at Cincinnati Children’s Burnet and Liberty Campuses. Our team provides support to patients who struggle with inpatient and ambulatory encounters and may display challenging behaviors during care for any reason. BST works collaboratively with child life specialists and become involved with patient care when behaviors pose a significant risk for patient, family, or staff. BST helps ensure safety for all by collaborating with medical professionals to assess behavioral needs during appointments and/or admissions. Our involvement includes problem-solving for effective behavioral support, adapting care to promote coping, safe physical management, and coaching of caregivers and staff. Situations that cause challenges are broad and can range from fear of a procedure for a neurotypical child to serving our most complex patients with medical and psychiatric comorbidities and our increasing volume of patients with neurobehavioral diagnosis.
Certified child life specialists play a critical role in supporting child health and wellness by using their expertise in helping children and their families cope with stressful healthcare experiences. Their work is to provide preparation, education, distraction, play, increase compliance, emotional safety, lessen stress, anxiety and psychosocial trauma that can be caused through healthcare. All children are at risk of experiencing medical trauma or developing needle-based avoidance or phobia. However, patients held down by staff are put at increased risk. Utilizing the right strategies and coping mechanisms can lessen stress for patients, families, and staff, prevent trauma, and improve safety for everyone. Child life specialists use emotionally safe, evidence based best practices to create coping strategies and interventions that lead to more positive healthcare encounters.
New program for lab draw support
Recently, BST and child life have partnered with primary care leadership to develop a supported lab clinic. The mission is to ensure patients can access essential well care, such as obtaining blood work. There were instances where patients could not get blood work in their PCP offices due to difficulty coping and would display unsafe behaviors that were beyond the staff’s resources to handle safely.
Patients unable to receive essential needle-based care safely in their community clinics can be referred to our team via their PCP and we create a care plan with their caregivers. This collaboration involves assessing how the patient copes, along with past success and challenges, to develop recommendations for a plan of support. Caregivers are contacted prior to their visit by BST staff and child life to create a plan tailored to the patient’s needs using the least restrictive level of support. Our goal is to help patients learn to tolerate needle-based care so they can return for future care in their neighborhood PCP offices. Some patients are referred for additional therapy, and others can overcome their fears with appointment support and practice.
BST staff, a certified child life specialist, and registration work together to schedule these supported appointments. This service is offered at the Burnet and Liberty Campuses. Facility support dogs may also be used for patients may benefit from this resource.
How to refer
If the family and provider would like to work with our team, providers may refer the patient for behavioral and psychosocial supports by emailing the necessary patient information (see below) to ReferralBehaviorSupport@cchmc.org. Questions can also be directed to this email. The provider will need to order the labs and attach the orders to the referral email.
Information needed:
Patient name
Date of birth
Reason for referral
Guardian name/phone number
Primary care office point of contact (if we have additional questions/needs. Please have this person be a medical professional)
Once we receive the referral, we will reach out to the caregivers/family to gather information and create a plan. We may also contact providers for additional medical information and/or helping a family create a PRN plan.