‘No conversation too tough’ training features
| Item | Description |
| Development | The codesign group included cancer and palliative care professionals, children’s bereavement specialists (therapists and bereavement charity representatives), those with lived experience of parental bereavement (both bereaved partners and adults bereaved as children), healthcare educators and academic researchers, and representatives from the supporting UK cancer charity. The group met five times, facilitated by an expert in healthcare education and training. |
| Aims | To provide course delegates with information and education to (1) enable them to assess and influence families’ readiness to address the needs of their dependent children; (2) improve their confidence, knowledge and skills to provide or signpost parents to available resources/tools to help with preparing children for parental death from cancer; (3) provide them with the knowledge and skills to recognise and manage their own emotions when dealing with families facing the death of a parent and (4) empower them to network with peers to acknowledge the difficulties of supporting patients with dependent children, and to enhance support for one another. |
| Course delivery | Three iterations of the training course ran between December 2021 and March 2022 with 15 places designated for each course. The first two courses were delivered online through video conferencing to reflect pandemic restrictions. The third course was delivered face to face at a UK city-centre venue. |
| Intended delegates | Cancer clinical nurse specialists and palliative care nurses working in community, hospice or acute settings, who care for people whose cancer cannot be cured. |
| Training recruitment | Potential delegates were contacted via personal and email approaches through the supporting UK cancer charity and the codesign team’s networks. |
| Course content | Informed orientation and background evidence, theoretical foundations, developing skill sets and fostering supportive processes (both peer-to-peer and organisational). Specifically, this included presentation of the evidence for the programme, models of grief, ages and stages of children’s development, understanding of family dynamics and structures, documenting the presence of children, putting knowledge into action, awareness of available resources, skills-based sessions and ‘caring for yourself’. |
| Teaching methods | Student-centred, experiential and interactive methods comprising lectures and discussion, case studies, videos, small groups, actor-facilitated role-play, facilitated reflection on practice, supportive and theoretical resources. |
| Structure | One-day session |
| Facilitation | The lead was an expert in providing advanced communications skills training, and an established lecturer with a research profile in supportive cancer care at a UK university and a nursing background. The second facilitator for the December 2021 course was a registered play therapist and a senior lecturer at a UK university with a background in nursing and counselling. For the February and March 2022 courses, the second facilitator was a specialist practitioner in preparing families for loss. |
| Adverse event | Should delegates have needed help with difficult issues they wished to discuss, contact details for a Ruth Strauss Foundation practitioner were given in the course introduction. The facilitators monitored responses throughout the session and were prepared to support delegates if required. |
| Costs | Free to delegates |