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.
Although it’s a wonderful resource you have created here, I just can’t help but be struck with how incredibly sad it is to need it in the first place. Both my parents had a wonderful experience at Victoria Hospice, and they really impacted my final experience so positively (something which I will be eternally grateful for). But one could reconcile it, because they had had a long and full life.
Thanks you Lise-Lotte, you’ve given voice to something that I probably couldn’t even have begun to address in my post. A couple of times during the creation of this training I had emotional moments, overcome with sadness about children in this situation and how difficult it must be to be the compassionate adults who work with them. I am so grateful that we have people that do this important work in our world. It’s wonderful that you and your parents had such a positive experience with Victoria Hospice.
Hi I just wonder why time and energy was spent developing another resource for person centred palliative care approach when over three years ago “The Palliative Care Approach Toolkit was developed and made available to every aged care facility and community facility within Australia. Ït was also associated with Australia wide education by Decision Assist. These documents are all available electronically. There is also CareSearch which is a fabulous resource for all things palliative care. Helen
Hi Helen,
The resources you named (above) sound like great tools and thanks so much for identifying them. It’s great to know what is available internationally, and to share resources with clinicians interested in, and passionate about the palliative approach.
This module was created by request from a Health Authority in Canada, and is specifically regarding pediatric palliative care. Good to know there is quality education made available to all aged care facility and community facility practitioners in Australia! It’s valuable to know what options exist for people.
Different platforms for learning (including the great resources you already mentioned) can be helpful for different people – depending on their learning needs and preferences, their schedule, context, location of care, and their expertise.
We’re always glad to hear about educational resources – so would be glad to hear if any other readers have favourite resources to share! Happy to connect over twitter (https://twitter.com/victoriahospice?lang=en)!