Education and training

Across the children’s palliative care sector there are serious recruitment challenges which impact on the ability of services to meet the needs of the growing number of children with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions and their families.

It is essential that we encourage new professionals to come into the sector and provide a variety of education and training opportunities so that a wide range of professionals can learn the skills, knowledge and competencies needed to care for children with complex, life-shortening conditions.  This is essential across all disciplines – health, social care, education, in the statutory and voluntary sector.

Making sure that the right education and training opportunities exist is a key priority for Together for Short Lives to ensure that the children’s palliative care sector continues to develop and improve.  Education needs to be in place at all levels, from supporting the wider public to have a better understanding of children’s palliative care, providing education for staff at universal and core levels as well as ensuring that adequate opportunities are available for specialist nurses and doctors.

To further this aim in 2020 we have been collaborating with colleagues across the sector to produce a Children’s Palliative Care Education Framework, which will enable educationalists to coordinate and quality assure their children’s palliative care programmes. The framework is published on the ICPCN website and you can find out more about it here.