Hearts Connected LLC

Hearts Connected LLC Child Mental Health and Wellness...
Offering on-line sessions to help YOU help YOUR child!

If parenting feels harder than it did for your parents, you’re not imagining it. We’re not parenting less capable kids. ...
06/03/2026

If parenting feels harder than it did for your parents, you’re not imagining it. We’re not parenting less capable kids. We’re parenting in a more emotionally complex world.

A lot of us are now expected to do something previous generations didn’t have to do as much of:
Translate behavior instead of just correcting it.

So now every moment comes with mental questions like:
⭐️ Is this defiance or overwhelm?
⭐️ Is this attitude or dysregulation?
⭐️ What is my child actually trying to communicate?

That constant interpretation is exhausting. You’re not doing too much. You’re doing more emotional work than parenting used to require.

If your child’s behavior feels confusing or hard to decode, we offer free consults to help you understand what’s going on beneath the surface and how to respond with more clarity and confidence.

🌟 Meet a Member Monday 🌟💖The Hearts Connected Affiliate Network Directory for community based child life specialists is ...
06/01/2026

🌟 Meet a Member Monday 🌟
💖The Hearts Connected Affiliate Network Directory for community based child life specialists is growing!

👋🏽Say hello to Shannon Meland & Sam Schackman, Certified Child Life Specialists and co-founders of Empowered Kids based in Minneapolis, Minnesota!

🏢Practice Details:
In person-Twin Cities & surrounding suburbs
Virtual services within Minnesota

📌Expertise
-Education, Preparation and Processing-illness, medical diagnosis, and hospital experiences
-Coping Techniques - anxiety associated to medical experiences
-Grief and Loss -life limiting diagnosis, anticipated death of a loved one and post-death support
-Children of Adult Patients–Support for children who have a caregiver with a medical diagnosis
-Education of Adults–Consulting on pediatric best practice, and continuing education

Details on HCAN Director for Community Based CCLS in Bio!


counseling

Forget fan girling over cute couples and hockey players. The real MVP wasn’t on the ice, she was on FaceTime🏒🥅Sometimes ...
05/31/2026

Forget fan girling over cute couples and hockey players. The real MVP wasn’t on the ice, she was on FaceTime🏒🥅

Sometimes the best fictional role models are the adults who quietly show up, and Hannah’s mother did just that.

She validated her emotions, listened without judging her, and created a space for her daughter to share what she was going through❤️‍🩹

Healing doesn’t always come from having the perfect words. Sometimes it comes from being the person who says, “I’m here, and I believe you.”

Who was your favorite Off Campus character and why?

Working hard or hardly funding our inner childhood interests?Not only can the Child Life field feel rewarding with copin...
05/30/2026

Working hard or hardly funding our inner childhood interests?

Not only can the Child Life field feel rewarding with coping support, but finding new creative ways to use these tools is always fun!

Something in this post caught your interest? Click the link in our bio and search through our favorite coping tools on our Amazon list.

Last week, we hosted an incredible webinar with hundreds of child life professionals engaging in one of the most honest ...
05/28/2026

Last week, we hosted an incredible webinar with hundreds of child life professionals engaging in one of the most honest and thought-provoking conversations we’ve had in a long time: navigating scope of practice in real-world clinical settings!

Together, we explored complex scenarios involving behavioral health, phobias vs fears, family requests difficult to say no to, interdisciplinary overlap, medication taking, and more. What became clear very quickly was that many child life specialists are not struggling because they “don’t know their scope” — they are navigating increasingly complex patient needs, system gaps, blurred interdisciplinary expectations, and real human moments that don’t always fit neatly into a textbook scope of practice definition.

Throughout the webinar, participants worked through real submitted scenarios, engaged in live polling, and discussed the nuance behind questions like:
👉 “Just because I can help… does that mean I should?”
👉 “At what point does support become treatment?”
👉 “Am I filling a system gap, or stepping outside my role?”

We created this Practical Framework for Assessing Scope — a tool designed to help clinicians think through complex situations in real time by assessing:
✨ Need
✨ Pattern
✨ Appropriateness
✨ Context
✨ Response
✨ Clinical support/supervision

Our hope is that this framework helps child life specialists feel more confident navigating gray areas while protecting both patients and the integrity of the role. These conversations are not meant to spark doubt, but rather professional confidence in our self-awareness and ability to question when something does not feel "right."

Trying new things can feel scary for children, when it's something exciting. One of the most helpful things we can do is...
05/27/2026

Trying new things can feel scary for children, when it's something exciting.

One of the most helpful things we can do isn’t convincing them they’ll have fun, it’s helping them feel prepared! The biggest mistake many parents make is focusing only on the positive to try and "make" their child have a positive experience, but we can't always force a specific experience or perception. Children need to be prepared for the reality of what will actually happen, how they may feel, what they can do, and who they can turn to.

Kids feel safer when they know:
✨ what the day will look like
✨ what feelings might come up
✨ who they can talk to
✨ what stays the same (“I always come back.”)

Preparing them builds confidence more than the pressure to have fun ever will! 🤍

05/25/2026

📣 Calling all community-based child life specialists!

The Hearts Connected Affiliate Network Directory (HCAN Directory) was created to help families more easily connect with local, in-person child life support services. 💙

✨ Free to join
✨ Free for families to use
✨ 13 states represented and growing
✨ Shared with 500+ camps nationwide
✨ Reaching 2,300+ child life subscribers
✨ 106K+ social media views

Our mission is simple: helping children, teens, and families more easily access child life support services when they need them most.

📩If you are a community-based CCLS looking to expand visibility and help families find your services, we would love to have you join the HCAN Directory through Hearts Connected.
➡️If you are a CCLS, provider or family looking for local child life support- search the HCAN Directory!

counseling

Dental visits can be scary for some children, but giving them options can make a big difference! It makes them feel more...
05/24/2026

Dental visits can be scary for some children, but giving them options can make a big difference! It makes them feel more involved and comfortable during their biannual teeth cleaning and checkups!

Save this post for your child's next dentist's appointment!

Comment "teeth" to receive this as a free download!

Many things kids say can be mistaken for disrespect. Kids don’t always have the words or emotional regulation to communi...
05/22/2026

Many things kids say can be mistaken for disrespect. Kids don’t always have the words or emotional regulation to communicate how they truly feel. It’s important to hear the emotion underneath these words so we can better understand and respond.

What phrase do you hear often that deserves a better “translation”? Let us know below!

Certified Child Life Specialists support children and families in so many ways! They advocate, educate, comfort, and use...
05/20/2026

Certified Child Life Specialists support children and families in so many ways! They advocate, educate, comfort, and use play to create a safe environment for children! They make scary moments more manageable and less traumatic.

Swipe to see a few of the ways child life specialists make an impact every day!

Address

Atlanta, GA

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 7pm
Tuesday 8am - 7pm
Wednesday 8am - 7pm
Thursday 8am - 7pm
Friday 8am - 7pm
Saturday 8am - 7pm
Sunday 8am - 7pm

Telephone

+14045160906

Website

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