Emma plank biography

In , they emigrated to San Francisco, where Emma Plank found work in Oakland as an attendant at an orphanage. She crossed paths with Josephine Whitney Duveneck, a humanitarian, environmental activist and refugee advocate who ran the private, progressive Presidio Hill School. After discovering that Plank was an experienced Montessori educator, Duveneck invited her to teach at the school, later making her its principal.

Her husband served in the U. After returning to San Francisco in , she was invited by Anny Katan, a psychoanalyst from Vienna, to come to Cleveland to assist Katan in directing the new Hanna Perkins School that served preschool children with emotional and behavioral problems. The Planks decided to re-locate to enable her to take on this intriguing position.

In the early s, another invitation led Plank into the pediatric wards of what was originally known as City Hospital of Cleveland. Frederick Robbins, Nobel Laureate and recently appointed head of the Department of Pediatrics and Contagious Disease at the hospital, sought out Plank to ask whether she would be interested in developing a child-oriented, psychosocial program for the many young, long-term patients with polio or tuberculosis.

She enthusiastically accepted the offer, wrote a successful grant proposal, and for seventeen years, from to , directed the Child Life and Education Program at what was by then referred to as the Metrohealth Medical Center. Later Career and International Impact Her work in the field soon drew national attention. In , Emma authored Working with Children in Hospitals, a foundational text still used to train child life professionals today.

Emma's legacy lives on as child life professionals across the global support children and families during healthcare encounters. In the early s, she created and directed the child life program at Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York.

Emma plank biography

In , she assisted Schneider Children's Hospital of Long Island in assuring their pediatric wards were family-oriented and included playrooms, caregiver facilities, and lively designs. Joan's work continues to influence how playrooms are designed and how preceptors engage with child life learners. Evelyn Oremland Dr. Evelyn Oremland made her mark on the profession by contributing to the education of child life specialists, standards of certification, and literature regarding clinical practice.

At sixteen, Plank began an apprenticeship at the Haus der Kinder, a Viennese Montessori school and attended seminars with Anna Freud while studying for accreditation. In she and her husband, Robert, fled Vienna for California, where she became principal of the Presidio Hill School. She collaborated with colleagues and worked to develop a Back-to-School Day for teachers who had students with cancer returning to school after treatment.

Child Life and the Play Lady Legacy As an outsider to child life, Stefi wanted to learn more and be attuned to the language being used to describe the child life professional. It seemed to be a collegial name that could be perceived as sexist or demeaning of the contributions of child life specialists. Stefi plunged into the history of the profession.

She learned how it could be that this profession existed but was not well known. Many healthcare professionals and parents had a narrow view of the role. Child Life was a true member of the health care team, yet it took time to earn respect. Her article explores the importance of naming and the challenges of finding a name that truly describes all the roles child life specialists perform.