Ceilidh is a Certified Child Life Specialist and a Grief Counsellor with a PhD in Family Relations and Human Development from the University of Guelph. She is an Assistant Professor in Child Life and Paediatric Psychosocial Care at McMaster University, a Research Fellow with the Association for Child Life Professionals, and Child Life Lead at Canadian Virtual Hospice.
Since 2001, Ceilidh has worked as a clinician and a researcher in children’s hospital and community-based palliative care and grief settings, supporting children, youth, and families living with serious illness, dying and death. Ceilidh’s research focuses on children’s, youth, and parents’ grief experiences, questions and concerns, relationships, and communication in the context of serious illness, death, and grief. She has written handbooks for families about communication with a dying child, as well as supporting grieving children and young people, and has worked with Canadian Virtual Hospice on the development of web-based resources and therapeutic activity books for children living with their own or someone else’s serious illness, dying, and death.