Educational Objectives

Through training, ORION strives to support clinicians in order that they will demonstrate increased specialized knowledge, skill, confidence and sensitivity in managing issues arising in families caring for children who are seriously ill.

Targeted trainings will support participants in demonstrating increased abilities to:

• Discuss similarities and differences in providing palliative and hospice care for children and adults
• Describe serious illness and its impact on children at different developmental stages.
• Identify tools for assessing and managing children’s pain and symptoms.
• Explore family systems and effective communication.
• Discuss the impact of a child’s serious illness on siblings.
• Discuss and role-play ways of talking about difficult topics.
• Explore the role of play in children’s communication and coping.
• Describe interventions for providing care at the time of dying.
• Discuss loss, grief and bereavement when a child has died.
• Explore ways to support oneself and colleagues caring for children at end of life.
• Discuss concrete ways of incorporating tenets of pediatric palliative care into the clinician’s pediatric practice.

All content is based on core curriculum and standards of care in pediatric hospice and palliative care from:

• National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO);
• CHIPPS Project of NHPCO (Children’s Project on Palliative/Hospice Services);
• Pediatric End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC); and
• Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA).