“I feel incredibly honored to get to walk with families”

By Maureen Gilmer, Riley Children’s Health senior writer, mgilmer1@iuhealth.org

Jenny Puntillo is a hugger. That’s the first thing you should know about her. She loves people. She loves connecting.

Puntillo has been a child life specialist with Riley Children’s Health for two years. Currently, she floats between the urology and hematology-oncology clinics in the Riley Outpatient Center.

When she and her family, which includes husband John and three children, moved to Indianapolis from northwestern Indiana in 2022, she felt at home almost immediately.

“For the first month, I would tell my husband, ‘Everybody is making eye contact with me, they’re talking to me.’ I’m like, ‘This is great. We’ve found our people.’”

Not that they didn’t have a good community near Chicago, said the Purdue University grad, who previously worked as a child life specialist at two Chicago-area children’s hospitals.

But there’s something different here, she said. Friendly. Approachable. And it extends to Riley.

“Healthcare is so different here,” Puntillo said. “I have found such an unbelievable sense of kindness and humility among the doctors and nurses. It’s just a very different team feel.

“There’s not a lot of swagger,” she added. “I feel by far the most valued as a child life specialist here as I have ever felt. That has made my job so much more rewarding. I look forward to every day.”

As a child life specialist, she and her peers at Riley help children and families navigate the stress of illness, injury and hospitalization through therapeutic play, education and emotional support.

She has a bag of tricks that goes with her on every patient visit. The bag is filled with items for any age, including a handheld bubble machine, stress balls, Pop Its, catheter teaching items and a tablet for watching videos or playing games.

The most popular item for any child life specialist, she said, is the Buzzy, a handheld bee-shaped device that uses vibration on the skin to disrupt pain signals during things like shots and blood draws.

Puntillo considers it a privilege to do the work she does.

“I feel incredibly honored to get to walk with families through hard days and to be trusted in those moments as a stranger. To get to be that person who can explain everything and hopefully bring some calm. To put a plan in place to make it just a little bit easier.”

She also loves empowering older children to participate in their care when appropriate because they can look back on the experience feeling like they mastered something, rather than feeling like something just happened to them.

“They can say they did that hard thing, and it can be so empowering. It’s setting that child up for success down the road.”

Puntillo, who has two children in college and one in high school, is thrilled to share that her daughter will be joining the 9W team as a nurse after graduation.

The move to Indianapolis has been good for the family, she said, and her Riley colleagues impress her every day.

“My team is full of unbelievable child life specialists. They keep me learning and stretching.”

Jenna Yarnell, manager of child life services, describes Puntillo as “a breath of fresh air and positivity.”

“Jenny is such a wonderful asset to our child life team. She provides amazing care to our patients and families, often during very invasive and challenging procedures in our outpatient center,” Yarnell said. “She also generously lends her years of experience and expertise to supporting other members of the child life team on difficult days.”

And if you need a hug, she’ll volunteer, she said.

“Bring it in.”

Photos submitted and by Mike Dickbernd, IU Health visual journalist, mdickbernd@iuhealth.org