Communication through Serious Childhood Illness
Short course
5 hours
Online
5 CPD points
(70% average required)
Course overview
Effective communication lies at the heart of good healthcare. This course equips healthcare professionals and caregivers working with children living with serious, life-threatening or life-limiting illnesses with the knowledge, practical skills, and evidence-based frameworks needed to communicate with confidence and empathy. Through real-world examples and practical guidance, participants will learn how to navigate challenging conversations, communicate effectively with children of different ages and developmental stages, and support parents, siblings, and families throughout their journey. It includes discussing diagnosis and treatment, talking about death and dying, and communicating in the digital age.
The course covers the following key elements:
- Defining communication, communication styles, and the value of being a good communicator.
- Skills needed to communicate effectively within a broad spectrum of healthcare settings.
- How to prepare for and hold difficult conversations, including how to break bad/significant news to children and families.
- Communicating with newly bereaved and grieving parents and family members.
- Appropriate communication with children of different ages and stages of development.
- How to talk to children about their own illness and death.
- Making the best use of online resources and communities when providing palliative care to children.
Who is this course for?
Required qualification
Course level
Develop your professional skills
Why choose this course?
- Comprehensive Curriculum: Covers all key concepts and skills, ensuring a deep and thorough understanding of good communication with colleagues, patients and their caregivers through serious childhood illness.
- Expert Developers: Learn from palliative care and communication leaders 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 Palliative Care for Children SA
Patch Academy is the education arm of PatchSA. It is an online learning platform that has operated for 3 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 12 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
PatchSA contact info
Follow PatchSA on Social Media
Course Lessons
Tracey graduated from the then University of Natal with an Honours Degree in Social Work in 1995 and in 2003 she graduated from the University of KwaZulu-Natal with a Master of Social Work (Clinical Practice). Since 2008 Tracey has been involved in teaching and training doctors, nurses and social workers in paediatric palliative care and has designed course work material for this purpose. She also provides direct services to children and their families. In January 2013 Tracey co-founded Umduduzi Hospice Care for Children, an NPO set up to provide paediatric palliative care in Durban and surrounding areas. She is also an honourary lecturer for the Department of Paediatrics, Nelson Mandela Medical School, University of KwaZulu-Natal.
Melissa is a wife, Sam’s Mum and a bereaved parent. She is also a palliative coach, a speaker and a professional consultant now strategically focused on the paediatric healthcare sector, through her company Kotula Management Services. Melissa has studied a Post Graduate Diploma in Palliative Medicine at UCT (University of Cape Town), Coaching at the Centre of Coaching at UCT’s Graduate School of Business, and has a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Rhodes University. Melissa is passionate about patient and child advocacy and child and family centred healthcare. Melissa is Co-Founder of Footprints4Sam, a Trust formed in memory of their son, Samuel. The mission of the Trust is to leave footprints of change in neonatal and paediatric ICU wards countrywide.
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 Palliative Care for Children South Africa (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.
Course developers
Sue Boucher is the Programme & Communications Manager and Tracy Rawlins is the Education and Training Manager at PatchSA. Sue Boucher is a teacher 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 gratudate qualification in nurse education, 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 12 virtual courses available on the Patch Academy website.
Student testimonials
I found the Communications course excellent and very intense in terms of being packed with information and appreciated the brilliant links to extra reading, communication types, etc. It’s honestly the best Communications training module I’ve done in all my professional years. The content and arrangement of the module completely absorbed me, so I found I needed time to digest it.
This was such a reflecting module for me. At times I was almost crying in front of the computer as it took me back to many patients where I have been a part of the care team - to an extent re-living the emotions and also realizing how many things could have been handled better. Really wonderful course where I have learned a lot and opened my mind to things I didn't even realize to think about previously.
A really great course. EVERY SINGLE healthcare professional should take this course, and it should be incorporated into undergraduate curriculums. Such simple tools that change the way we communicate.
Simplest way to online learning
