Optimizing Communication: Family Grief in Pediatric Hospice

Video Runtime: 13 Minutes

This course provides actionable strategies for conducting an effective first bereavement visit after the death of a pediatric patient. Clinicians often struggle with knowing how to communicate and what to say to grieving families, especially when confronting the heavy burden of a parent’s unfounded guilt or siblings’ misperceptions. Geared toward hospice nurses, social workers, and palliative care providers in the homecare environment, this course offers tools to clarify upsetting beliefs regarding the timing of death or the administration of final medications. Practitioners will develop essential active listening skills to offer undivided attention, ensuring they can summarize and deeply comprehend a family’s unique grieving process. Furthermore, the training highlights how to optimize communication by monitoring activities of daily living to identify when a family requires escalated psychosocial support, ensuring comprehensive and compassionate bereavement care.

Learning Outcomes

• Recognize if there are any unfounded beliefs around the time of death of the child that are causing guilt
• Integrate active listening into the clinician-provided support
• Select the support provided to include other psychosocial supports as needed