It was a pleasure for me to work this past winter with Victoria Hospice, a Victoria-based non-profit which provides end-of-life care focused on palliative treatment. Victoria Hospice’s Education & Research Department contacted me last year for learning design and development assistance to create a short e-learning module on Pediatric Palliative Care.

This e-learning module is for various health practitioners – physicians, nurses, social workers, counsellors and others – who do or may work with children in palliative care. Victoria Hospice wanted to offer an online self-study learning experience which would help these practitioners know what pediatric palliative care is; be able to explain the main tasks of pediatric palliative care providers and why it might be different (or not) than providing palliative care to adults; and be able to use strategies, frameworks and scales for assessing symptoms and pain in children. They also wanted these practitioners to be able to recognize their own strengths and other supports available to them when working with children in pediatric palliative care.

I used Articulate Storyline 360 to create this e-learning module and drew from Victoria Hospice’s branded colours to create the design template. The module features four sections:

  • What is Pediatric Palliative Care
  • How it is Different than Adult Palliative Care?
  • How Do We Assess Symptoms and Pain in Children?, and
  • Final Thoughts and Resources

Learners can go through the module sections in any order. Sections feature text and images as well as interactions such as the one pictured next. This is a slide interaction which the learner can move to the left or right to receive information about disease diagnoses differences between children and adults in palliative care. The bars in the chart change their size and percentages according to the slider’s location.

Here is an example of a pictorial pain rating scale that palliative care providers can use to assess pain in very young children; the learner moves the slider from left to right to see the different simple facial drawings which depict levels of hurt. Using this simple scale can help palliative care providers assess pain in young children and up.

Other module pages show a mixture of text and rich images, with clickable sections to reveal different information, such as this one about having developmentally appropriate conversations about death and dying with children of various age groups:

This e-learning module is placed on a web-based learning management system which allows Victoria Hospice to manage learner registration and track learner analytics. It is a part of Victoria Hospice’s blended Palliative Care Medical Intensive Course, which also includes webinars and three days of face-to-face-learning. Any group interested in learning more about individualized training experiences with Victoria Hospice should contact the Victoria Hospice Education & Research Department.

I look forward to showcasing other e-learning modules that I have been working on with Victoria Hospice in future posts.

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