732-835-8363
COASTAL COPING
Child Life Private Practice & Consulting
CHILD LIFE PRIVATE PRACTICE SERVICES
Child Life private practices provide a variety of services to children & families, healthcare professionals, schools, and child life students. Please explore our menu of services. Looking for a service that is not listed here? Please contact us to share more about your needs. We understand each person's needs are different. We will do our best to design individualized interventions which are within our scope of clinical practice.
ABOUT COASTAL COPING
Working together as Certified Child Life Specialists in a community hospital, we often had requests from patients and families for referrals for outpatient child life private practice services after a child was discharged from the hospital. Sadly, we realized there were virtually no child life outpatient services available for us to refer our patients to. This got us thinking about all the opportunities for child life services to be incorporated into areas outside the hospital. We decided it was time to start filling in those gaps in service. As child life specialists, we have a code of ethics, and within that code are requirements for professional responsibility. We realized that to be truly professionally responsible, we needed to make child life services more accessible in our communities. Our passion for supporting children and families through life's most difficult challenges, and our desire to help advance the child life profession by supporting child life students and professionals lead us to create Coastal Coping.
ABOUT
APRIL SLOWENSKI
MBA, MEd, CCLS, CPMT, IAC
Hi! I'm April! I am co-owner of Coastal Coping. I have been a Certified Child Life Specialist since 2010. I earned my B.S. in Psychology-Child Life from Utica College of Syracuse University a Master's in Education Child Development from Ashford University and my MBA in healthcare administration from Southern New Hampshire University. I completed my child life practicum at Connecticut Children's Medical Center and my child life internship at Prisma Health Children's Hospital. For the last 14 years, I have provided child life services around the country and have gained experience with a large range of patient populations including the emergency department, general pediatrics, and hematology/oncology.
I have experience in creating and directly supervising a child life practicum and internship program. I created and taught the first child life undergraduate course in the state of NJ at Monmouth University. Supporting child life students and professionals is a passion of mine. I feel a strong commitment to helping new child life professionals be successful in the field.
I am certified as a Child Life Specialist, Pediatric Massage Therapist, and Integrative Aromatherapy Practitioner.
I look forward to supporting you, your child, and your family through your healthcare experiences.
ABOUT
KELLIE MAAS
MS, CCLS, CEIM, CPMT
Hello! My name is Kellie Maas and I am co-owner of Coastal Coping. I began my career as a Certified Child Life Specialist in 2013 and have experience working with a variety of pediatric populations and units including the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Radiology, Oncology, the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Peri-Operative Services as well as the Adult Populations at hospitals in the New York City and Jersey Shore areas. I received my Bachelors of Science degree in Family and Human Services at Towson University and a Master’s degree in School Counseling at Capella University. I am currently certified as a Child Life Specialist, NJ State School Counselor, Pediatric Massage Therapist and an Educator in Infant Massage. My family and I reside in Central New Jersey. I have a true passion for working with kids and their families and am honored to work with you.
CHILD LIFE INDEPENDENT CONSULTANTS
Coastal Coping LLC is committed to providing quality child life services to the community setting. In addition to Kellie and April providing services, we contract outstanding child life specialists to help us with our vision. If you have questions about our team, please reach out to learn more!
"We found ourselves in a situation we had not imagined/ prepared for. My nearly four year old son was heading to the emergency room sick with his dad while I was in labor and in the hospital getting ready to deliver. Our son woke up not being able to walk and his blood work showed levels similar to those of someone with leukemia. He was admitted to the hospital and was monitored and evaluated by different doctors over the weekend while we waited for a bone marrow biopsy. Being overwhelmed in the hospital with different potential diagnosis for my 4 year old and having a new baby led me to reach out to Coastal Coping. After talking with them I felt so much more prepared to help my son understand what was going on in a developmentally appropriate way and had tools to explain what might occur which helped ease some of the stress of all of us. I am so thankful and lucky that things have taken a better turn for us with his health and am so thankful for the support we received and tools to help our son during that difficult time. We even received some ideas of how to help ease the transition for when our son was able to come home from the hospital and also experience being a big brother for the first time! Thank you for the support and developmentally appropriate guidance during a difficult time!"