Background: Child life therapy (CLT) is an allied health profession, which uses play, relaxation techniques and education to empower children and reduce their stress and anxiety while in hospital or undergoing medical procedures. The potential benefit of CLT in the emergency department requires further exploration. Objectives: Our study investigated if children’s emotional distress, perceived fear and pain ratings would be reduced with receipt of CLT, compared to treatment as usual, during suturing of laceration and cannulation procedures in emergency. Methods: A non-randomised between groups design was utilised to compare experiences of children who received CLT (n=57; age m=7.42) and those who did not (n=30; age m=8.03) whilst in emergency. Attending emergency department clinicians (involved in the medical procedure but not CLT) rated emotional distress using the Children’s Emotional Manifestation Scale (from 1 to 5) and asked children to nominate how scared they felt during the procedure on the Children’s Fear Scale (from 0 to 4), along with their pain level using the Wong-Baker Pain Scale (from 0 to 10). Results: Emotional distress (d=.539; p=.033) and fear (d=.466; p=.044) were reduced for children receiving CLT compared to controls, with no differences in pain (d=.317; p=.167). Further analysis is needed to explore the impact of sedation use, number of cannulation attempts and location of laceration in interpretation of findings. Conclusion: The child life therapy role may be an important addition to emergency departments in provision of specialised support for alleviating anticipatory fear and emotional distress of paediatric patients undergoing medical procedures.