Care for Children at the End of Life
Short course
6 hours
Online
6 CPD points
(70% average required)
Course overview
This Care for Children at the End of Life course covers the following key elements:
- The difference between end-of-life care and terminal care.
- The benefits of providing good end-of-life care for a child and their family.
- Providing culturally sensitive care at the end of life.
- How a child’s understanding of illness and death changes and develops according to their age and stage of development.
- Tools to undertake the process of advance care planning.
- Managing pain and distressing symptoms likely to occur when a child is dying,
- The physical, psychosocial and spiritual needs of the dying child.
- Supporting the family at the time of a child’s death and afterwards.
- The importance and value of memory work and legacy planning.
Who is this course for?
Required qualification
Course level
Develop your professional skills
Why choose this course?
- Comprehensive Curriculum: It covers all key aspects and relevant skills, ensuring a deep understanding of assessing and managing pain in children.
- Expert Developers: Learn from leaders in the field of children's palliative care, all clinical and academic experts with years of real-world experience and insight.
- Flexible Learning Options: Our online courses provide the flexibility and convenience of learning in your own time, from the comfort of your home or office.
About the academic institution
Patch Academy is the education arm of PatchSA. It is an online learning platform that has operated for 4 years and trained over 4000 students with courses included in the curricula of 3 major universities in South Africa. Patch Academy offers paediatric palliative care training via interactive courses on various aspects of providing holistic care to children with palliative care needs. The 16 available courses are all CPD accredited and have been developed by a group of experts in the field. The content is appropriate for all members of a multi-disciplinary palliative care team and there are no prerequisites for taking our courses. We invite anyone with an interest in caring for children with serious, chronic, life-threatening and/or complex medical conditions and their families to complete any or all of the courses.
4500+ Students
16 CPD Accredited Courses
Highly Rated
Patch contact info
Follow PatchSA on social media
Course Lessons
Course developers & authors
Founder and CEO of Paedspal
Course Convenor at University of Cape Town
Dr Meiring is a Paediatrician with a special interest in Palliative Care and Chronic Pain Management. She is the Founding Director of Paedspal, an NGO that provides a paediatric palliative care service to public and private patients in Cape Town. Academically she convenes the Post-Graduate Diploma in Paediatric Palliative Medicine at UCT. An active advocate, Dr Meiring founded Palliative Care for Children South Africa (PatchSA) and chaired the organisation for 12 years. She remains as the advocacy lead and is engaged in policy making nationally.
Education and Training Manager at PatchSA
Tracy Rawlins is a qualified professional nurse, midwife and health educator. Her experience in caring for the terminally ill in her community laid the foundation for her qualification in adult palliative care but her heart and passion has always been in working with babies and children. In 2017 she successfully completed her post grad diploma in Paediatric Palliative medicine, cum laude. Her current role as the Training and Education Manager for PatchSA has afforded her the opportunity to combine both her passion for facilitation and training, and at the same time, assist in caring and supporting children with serious illnesses and their families.
University of the Free State
Prof Jan du Plessis is a paediatric oncologist at the Universitas Academic Hospital in Bloemfontein. Prof du Plessis obtained his Certificate in Medical Oncology (Paediatrics) from the Colleges of Medicine (SA) in 2006. He completed a 2-year fellowship in Paediatric Haematology/Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplantation at the Sydney Children’s Hospital in Sydney, Australia. Prof du Plessis completed the diploma in palliative care at the University of Cape Town in 2013 and completed and obtained the MPhil in Palliative Medicine degree from the University of Cape Town in 2016. Currently, he is the head of Paediatric Oncology and is also a lecturer at the University of the Free State for both undergraduate and postgraduate medical students. He has a special interest in paediatric palliative care and haemophilia.
Course developers
Sue Boucher is the Programme & Communications Manager and Tracy Rawlins is the Education and Training Manager at PatchSA. Sue Boucher is an educator by profession, an author, and communications expert. She has worked in the field of children's palliative care since 2008 and is well versed in all aspects of the specialty. Tracy Rawlins is a professional nurse with a post graduate qualification in nurse education, as well as adult, and paediatric palliative medicine. They are both content experts with vast experience in adult education and have honed their skills as online instructional designers since 2020, collaboratively developing each of the 16 virtual courses available on the Patch Academy website.
Student testimonials
“The course was excellent. It is a must for every health care provider, not just those working in paediatrics or palliative care. It was easy to navigate, very well thought of, had an appropriate use of resources and was thoroughly engaging. Even though I do this every day, I learned quite a lot and I really enjoyed doing it. It was very thought provoking and had a lot of information that I thought I could use in everyday situations, particularly with families. I would highly recommend this to everyone.
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