Pediatric Palliative Care Education

Adult to Pediatric: Preparing Palliative Care Professionals to Care for Pediatric Patients — COMING SOON

Palliative care and hospice professionals who typically care for adult patients now have a full series of courses that provide comprehensive skills and strategies needed to effectively care for seriously ill infants, children, teens, and young adults, and their families.

Pediatric palliative care differs significantly from palliative care for adults in myriad ways, especially as end of life approaches. Adult to Pediatric: Preparing Palliative Care Professionals to Care for Pediatric Patients is a new online curriculum that equips hospice and palliative care practitioners with the knowledge and resources to ensure young patients and their families receive the best care possible.

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Serious or life-limiting illness in an infant, child, teen, or young adult can be devastating for the patient, family, and caregivers. In many cases, curative or life-extending treatment can last for years, along with the need for high-quality palliative care designed to manage symptoms and ease suffering through every stage of illness.

This comprehensive, self-paced education is focused on topics and domains of care that are particularly challenging in pediatric palliative care including communication, pain and symptom management, easing suffering, care delivery, team support, and ethical issues.

DESIGNED FOR:

• Nurse Practitioners
• APRNS
• RNs
• PAs
• Social workers
• Chaplains
• Other members of the
  hospice or palliative care team

Delivered through an interactive learning management system that reinforces understanding and retention, this curriculum builds the skills and confidence you will need to accurately assess and powerfully address the physical, emotional, and psychosocial suffering of seriously ill pediatric patients and their families.

Take the entire curriculum, a specific series, or individual courses, based on your own needs!

Series Information

Course Information

Introduction to the Basic Curriculum

This course provides a brief overview of how to approach pediatric palliative care. Topics include acknowledging and recognizing personal biases and fears about caring for seriously ill children, teens, or young adults; how to develop broader self-awareness and cultural humility, which are key to engaging diverse families; common concerns about using medications in children; and how to understand a child’s external support systems. .5 CE Hour

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Communication Skills for Pediatric Patients and Family Support

Basic Course: Effective communication is integral to high-quality palliative care, and communicating with seriously ill pediatric patients and their families requires special skills. This course examines how to apply powerful listening techniques and read nonverbal communication cues in children, teens, and young adults; how to elicit information from family members and children while respecting differences in culture and belief systems; how to support families in distress, including what is helpful to say and what is not; and how to use the SPIKES communication protocol. 1 CE Hour

Foundational Course: This course gives community-based palliative care providers the tools needed for a successful home visit with young patients and their families. It explores how to determine the right time for the visit and who should be present; how to help care for other children who may be present; and how to establish trust and effectively communicate with seriously ill children, teens, and young adults; how to interact with other siblings, and how to have difficult conversations with parents. 3.75 CE Hours

Advanced Course: Some of the most challenging aspects of communication in pediatric palliative care are examined in this course, including how families make decisions; how the developmental stage of a child impacts decision making; what happens when families disagree; navigating the “conspiracy of silence”; how to identify and support complex families; how to deal with conflict; and moral issues. Conflict with insurance payers and other providers is also included. 3 CE Hours

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Pediatric Pain and Symptom Assessment and Management

Basic Course: This 3.5-hour course covers how to assess for pain in pediatric patients. It includes an in-depth review of normal growth and developmental milestones in infants, children, and adolescents; common childhood illnesses; pain management medications and how to determine appropriate dosing as well as routes of administration; and nonpharmacological approaches to pain management. 3.5 CE Hours

Foundational Course: Building on the Basic course, this curriculum provides clinical strategies for assessing and managing pain in pediatric palliative care patients. You will explore assessment tools and how to apply them to seriously ill children; pediatric medication management and dosing guidelines; strategies for managing common symptoms; nonpharmacological interventions; and pain-management challenges with functionally impaired children. 6.25 CE Hours

Advanced Course: Expanding on the knowledge provided in the Basic and Foundational courses, this 8-hour course is a deep dive for experienced clinicians who want to make pediatric palliative care a focus of their practice. Topics covered include dosing guidelines to manage complex pain; “titrating to comfort” to manage difficult symptoms; the role of medical marijuana; caring for an infant; assessing and treating pain in neurologically complex patients; recognizing and responding to psychosocial and spiritual distress; trauma-informed care; and palliative sedation. 8 CE Hours

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Concepts in Easing Suffering and Promoting Healing for Pediatric Patients

Basic Course: This course offers an overview of how best to support pediatric patients approaching end of life and their families. Modules cover grief and bereavement for family and caregivers; support for siblings; and practices to ease suffering, including legacy-making and creating keepsakes. 1.25 CE Hours

Foundational Course: Caring for children, teens, and young adults nearing end of life and their families requires enhanced skills in recognizing and addressing psychosocial and spiritual suffering. This course prepares you to be present and acknowledge suffering; recognize types of suffering; assess anticipatory grief; support parents in talking with their children; assess spiritual suffering; support families with conflicting beliefs; find purpose and create meaning; empower parents and families for quality-of-life decisions; and provide bereavement support. 7 CE Hours

Advanced Course: This course explores challenging areas of pediatric palliative care practice including working within the context of ongoing suffering (e.g., transference and countertransference); reconciling differences of opinion in families; and supporting the unique needs of stepparents, LGBTQ parents, single parents, nonmarried partners of parents, foster parents, grandparents, and grandparents in a parenting role. You will also learn to how to empower patients and families in the decision-making process and how to navigate conflict among family members and/or the medical team. 3 CE Hours

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Pediatric Care Delivery

Basic Course: The use of medical devices is an important issue in providing care for children with serious illness. This course reviews some of the most common medical devices used in children in the home setting: feeding tubes, central venous catheters, and respiratory support devices. .75 CE Hour

Foundational Course: This in-depth course examines the differences between palliative care and hospice, as well as how they differ for adults and children, and reviews concurrent hospice care for children, including how to identify patients and families who are eligible. You will also explore common trajectories of serious illnesses in pediatric patients; medical devices and how they differ for children vs. adults; medications and what is covered; home care, care coordination among providers and settings; and the transition from pediatric care to adult healthcare. 6 CE Hours

Advanced Course: In this course, you will learn to identify key clinical features of some of the more common complex conditions seen in pediatric hospice and palliative care; understand how to help parents advocate for their child while recognizing the limits of medical interventions; and identify medical and psychosocial resources for families of children with rare/complicated diagnoses. 3 CE Hours

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Team Support (Foundational only)

This course discusses how caring for pediatric patients can change the dynamics of a palliative care team, and how to protect the health, well-being, and effectiveness of the team. Topics covered include the importance of the transdisciplinary approach; the need to nurture the team and promote self-care; how to identify signs of compassion fatigue; and how to engage other clinicians in the care of pediatric palliative care patients. 5 CE Hours

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Pediatric Ethical Principles and Challenges (Advanced only)

Providers can encounter several ethical concerns in the context of caring for seriously ill infants, children, teens, or young adults, and their families. This course explores common ethical principles and concerns including withholding food and withdrawing medication; palliative sedation; autonomy of a child; requests for nonbeneficial treatment; and requests for medical aid in dying for patients over 18. 6 CE Hours

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Are These Courses Right for You or Your Team?

Keep in mind that we’ve created this series for palliative care professionals who typically work with adults and are seeking training in how to effectively support seriously ill pediatric patients and their families. Although much of the curriculum addresses in-home settings, the principles of care will apply in any setting.

Series Information