BC Centre for Palliative Care

Dr. Hsien Seow, Canada Research Chair in Palliative Care and Health System Innovation and Professor, McMaster University, will be the first Keynote speaker at .

His session ‘How we can achieve a Palliative Care Revolution: A social movement of patients, families and clinicians’ will discuss his extensive working to improve both patient and family experiences.

In recent years he has spoken at the McGill International Palliative Care Congress, and released a book coauthored with Dr Sammy Winemaker ‘Hope for the Best, Plan for the Rest’ which serves as a guide for patients and families facing a life-changing diagnosis.

Don’t miss it, register before September 23: https://ccevent2024.bc-cpc.ca/

Join Pam Bilusack share about the disenfranchised loss of pet loss grief. This type of loss can evoke profound grief, yet this grief experience often receives inadequate recognition and support in comparison to traditional grief support frameworks. This session aims to shed light on the unique challenges of pet loss grief and the importance of nurturing partnerships between grief professionals to build on this support.

🗓️ September 25, 2024

Session participants will have the opportunity to ask question and engage with the presenters.

Register: https://echo.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEuf-2srD0pGtMQ1flBduvkVojPXzI8rOmW

All Together Symposium 2024 will have lots of sessions available for our colleagues working in including:

- Home Grown Hospice with Nancy McPhee

- Free Spirit Cafe: Attending to the Spirit in Hospice and Palliative Care with Jane Dawson

- Reimagining a hospice model of care with Kara Lyons-Dietz and Katie Hennessy

- Stories of Access: How Networks Supported Access to Palliative and Hospice Care for People Living with the Labels of Intellectual Disability with Meaghan Taylor-Reid

Which session are you looking forward to?

Register at: https://ccevent2024.bc-cpc.ca/

In our Five Years of Collective Impact report we share how our work around serious illness conversations (SIC) has changed over the years. BCCPC has moved away from delivering SIC workshops directly. Instead, we now focus on supporting the trained facilitators and master trainers across BC to deliver the training within their respective organizations.

This has allowed for the training of over 2200 clinicians to conduct effective SIC conversations with their patients. SIC conversations are designed to help people living with a serious illness to get care that is consistent with their values, beliefs, and wishes.

View the full report: https://www.bc-cpc.ca/about-us/impact-reports/

September's Centrepoint is out! Here's a sneak preview 👇

🗓️ Register for the All Together Symposium before the September 23 deadline

🤝 BCCPC’s collaboration with the Carnegie Community Centre in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

🗣️ Call for Collaboration – Living with a Life-limiting Illness: Access to Care and Related Experiences

Read it all and much more here: https://mailchi.mp/bc-cpc/centrepoint-september2024

Part of our Updates & Innovations in Essential Conversations for the Health Care Team ECHO Series. Join Dr. Laura Gordon and Dr. Nick Petropolis as they will share the barriers and facilitators they’ve encountered, and best strategies to help Long Term Care teams engage in earlier, better, and more essential conversations

Register: https://echo.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMvf-uqrT0oG9BcnIOX4aP26lLx994Zf053

Tomorrow is your last chance to book your room at Pinnacle Hotel Harbourfront with a special All Together Symposium discount.

Special rates available via this link:
https://book.passkey.com/event/50768991/owner/2075/home

All Together Symposium 2024 will have sessions on topics spanning Pan-Canadian approaches to care, as well as some that focus on care in both city and rural settings.

Here are just a few of the sessions taking a look at palliative care settings across the country:

-Designing More Equitable Palliative Care: A Pan-Canadian Approach to Improving Access, Quality and Safety of Care with Lindsay Yarrow

- Co-creating Regional Palliative Care Standards: a shared vision for consistent, quality care experience for clients receiving Palliative Care Services in Vancouver Coastal Health with Danielle Killoran

- Death Downtown: Alternative Memorialization on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside with Rebecca Packham

- A Rural Approach to the Compassionate Community Model with Meghan Derkach

- A Network of Palliative Care in the Cowichan Valley with Lina Al-Sakran

Where are you travelling from to join us at ?
Register at: https://ccevent2024.bc-cpc.ca/

🗓️ Mark your calendars!

On October 18, 2024, take part in the world’s largest ECHO session, hosted by !

Connect virtually with thousands of health care professionals from around the world to advance primary palliative care. Featuring international experts and live interpretation, don’t miss your chance to be a part of a global movement to improve palliative care for all!

Register now: www.echopalliative.com/worlds-largest-palliative-care-echo-session

Join Dr. Greg Andreas for a conversation on how we can approach advance care planning conversations to help individuals share their needs and wants for their health journey by asking What Matters to You.

Wednesday, September 11th, 2024

Register: https://echo.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMufuqrpj8uHNGo7Z5-HpAuPp5DA42xP3Tn

One of our key goals is to promote effective advance care planning conversations and processes that help people get care that is consistent with their values, beliefs, and wishes.

One of the simplest yet most effective methods for promoting person-centered care is facilitating conversations about individuals’ future care wishes. These discussions increase the likelihood that individuals will receive care that aligns with their wishes.

Over the past 5 years we have increased the reach of our ACP training. See more of our impact in the full report: https://www.bc-cpc.ca/about-us/impact-reports/

Will you be joining us at All Together Symposium 2024?
Get ready for a full day of discussion, educational workshops, and valuable networking opportunities:

🗓️ Register at https://ccevent2024.bc-cpc.ca/
⏰ Check out the full program via the Whova app https://whova.com/portal/webapp/allto_202410/
🏨 Register and book your accommodation Pinnacle Hotel Harbourfront by September 4th to guarantee our discounted rate! Very few hotel rooms are left!
🗣️ Let your colleagues know you will be there

The Gain Palliative Skills (GPS) learning pathway is for healthcare providers new to palliative care. Users said the pathway helped them to feel more confident working with patients who have life-limiting illnesses.

To demonstrate continuous learning, users get a certificate of completion for the parts of the learning pathway they have completed. Most importantly, learners gain skills that can translate to any clinical environment, no matter where their career takes them.

Find out more about the learning pathway here: https://www.bc-cpc.ca/gain-palliative-skills-gps-learning-pathway/

In our Five Years of Collective Impact report, we share how we have been responding to areas identified by partners as highest needs by developing a groundbreaking grief and bereavement improvement action plan.

View the full report: https://www.bc-cpc.ca/about-us/impact-reports/

Our largest ECHO session yet! On August 7th we had our highest ever attended session: Bereavement in the Context of Homelessness with 145 participants. Thank you to our presenters and all who attended for being a part of this important conversation on how best to improve the access and quality of bereavement support for those experiencing homelessness.

Come join future conversations on a variety of topics around grief and bereavement and explore the other ECHO series we offer: https://www.bc-cpc.ca/echo-project-new-home/

August's Centrepoint is out and full of new research, events updates and reports.

📱Get ready for the All Together Symposium with the event schedule and app

⭐ Read our 5 year Impact Report

🗓️ Mark upcoming ECHO events in your calendar

Read it all and much more here:
https://mailchi.mp/bc-cpc/centrepoint-august-2024

We recently released our latest impact report showing five years of collective impact. Today we take a closer look at our COVID-19 response.

The months that followed the World Health Organization declaration of a global pandemic were anything but business as usual; the global healthcare community braced to meet unprecedented challenges.

In response to this once-in-a-century epidemiological event, BCCPC conducted numerous online consultations with palliative care partners in both the health system and community sectors in March 2020.

Our team quickly shifted their focus towards addressing areas identified by partners as highest needs and ensured that essential information and resources were readily available, easy to comprehend, and dynamic enough to address the evolving challenges.

Read the full report to see more of our key achievements: https://www.bc-cpc.ca/about-us/impact-reports/

In addition to resources for Healthcare Professionals, we also provide materials for individuals and families.

Our videos, glossary, and Advance Care Planning resources can help anyone better understand palliative care.

Find it all on our website: https://www.bc-cpc.ca/all-resources/individuals/understanding-palliative-care/

As we celebrate BC Centre for Palliative Care’s 10th anniversary together, we are excited to release our second 5-year Impact Report, covering the period from 2019 to 2023.

Just some of our key achievements include:

- meeting unprecedented needs and challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, by providing resources to support everyone, including healthcare professionals, communities, and British Columbians.

- Unveiling a groundbreaking Grief & Bereavement Improvement Action Plan to improve bereavement support across BC

- Refreshing out Advance Care Planning resources to be more accessible and available to our diverse communities

- Supported the development of a national Serious Illness Training Program under Pallium Canada, modelled after our successful program in BC.

- Launched British Columbia’s first palliative care ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes).

- Launched the All Together Symposium, the only biennial provincial palliative care event in BC

- Established a Consensus-based Definition for the Care Provided by Hospice Societies in BC

And much more...

Head to https://www.bc-cpc.ca/about-us/impact-reports to read the full report or stay tuned as we share the highlights here over the next few weeks.

Our accomplishments are possible through collaboration with key partners, including First Nations Health Authority, Fraser Health, Interior Health, Island Health, Northern Health, and Vancouver Coastal Health

Calling community leaders, volunteers, healthcare administrators, clinicians, researchers, and frontline workers!

Register now to equip yourselves with the most effective practices and tools necessary to make an impact in : https://ccevent2024.bc-cpc.ca/

When you’re browsing our website or researching palliative care for the first time you might come across some new terms. We're sharing the definitions of terms as used in BC.

Here are some definitions of key terminology you might come across:

Informed consent: In health care, informed consent is agreeing to a treatment when you understand its purpose, benefits, and risks.

Life-support treatments: Resuscitation and other treatments to keep you alive after failure of one or more vital organs. Without these treatments your body would not function. Examples include Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) and using ventilators.

What other terms have you seen that you would like us to explain in more detail?

At its most basic, the idea of people helping people is global. In Canada, the compassionate community movement, a model of the public health approach to palliative care, has already garnered considerable support on a regional, provincial, and national level, establishing the country as a leader of the movement.

In 2016, BC Centre for Palliative Care took the lead to create a network of compassionate communities across BC.

To date, over 120 compassionate community initiatives across the province have been sponsored and supported by BC Centre for Palliative Care with half being in rural and remote areas of BC.

Are you interested in starting up a compassionate community initiative to support people who are affected by a serious illness, end of life, or grieving experience? Find out more: https://www.bc-cpc.ca/all-resources/community-organizations/compassionate-communities-2/ or get in touch by emailing: [email protected]

When you’re browsing our website or researching palliative care for the first time you might come across some new terms. We're sharing the definitions of terms as used in BC.

First, we look at what a Representation Agreement is and the different types.

A Representation Agreement is a legal document in which you name someone, called a Representative, to make personal-care and health-care decisions for you, if you can’t make these decisions on your own.

There are two types of Representation Agreements:
Section 9 (Enhanced) – can be used by a capable person to name a Representative to make personal-care and health-care decisions, including decisions about life support and life- prolonging treatments.
Section 7 (Standard) – can be used by a person with lessened capability to appoint a Representative who can provide routine management of the person’s financial affairs, legal affairs, personal care, and minor and major health care.

What other terms have you seen that you would like us to explain in more detail?

welcomes Stephanie Laing Kelowna Homelessness Research Collaborative and Dr. Joshua Black BC Centre for Palliative Care as they share the findings of research that investigated bereavement in the context of homelessness & how best to improve the access and quality of supports available. Learn from from the people who conducted the 80 in-person interviews with those with lived experience on their experiences and lessons learned.

Register for August 7: https://ow.ly/qmxN50SKjX0

Grief Dreams Podcast

Did you know that all our past ECHO sessions are available online to watch on demand?

Catch up on topics including:
- Grief & Bereavement
- The impact of COVID-19
- All Together- Compassionate Communities at work
- Flexing Your Core: The Palliative Workout

Visit: https://www.bc-cpc.ca/echo-project-new-home/echo-project-past-series-and-resources/ #1676504400175-f69c9f97-4b54

Here’s 3 simple steps to start your Advance Care Planning:

Think - Just like other major decisions in your life, your future health and personal care decisions will depend on what matters most to you – your values and beliefs.

Talk - It’s vital that the people who may be involved in your future care know about what matters most to you, and who you want to speak for you if you can’t.

Plan - It may be a long time between talking to people and the time they need to make decisions for you. Memories fade, so write it down.

Don’t expect to complete all the steps at once: through the process, you’ll consider some big questions, so take your time and come back to it as often as you need.

Even if you’ve already done Advance Care Planning, you should review it periodically, especially after any major life event or change in your health.

For more information and resources in Hindi, Punjabi, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese visit: https://www.bc-cpc.ca/acp/ #1660612092142-3131c694-9d8f

Seats are limited...Secure your spot Now! You won’t want to miss this unique event, bringing together experts in palliative care and compassionate communities. Be part of something extraordinary at this in person, one day opportunity, Friday, October 4, 2024

Symposium Details & Registration here: https://ccevent2024.bc-cpc.ca/

Don’t miss the opportunity to feedback on the Government of Canada’s draft plan for creating a new Youth Mental Health Fund which will help youth in Canada access the mental health care they need.

We encourage those who support seriously ill, grieving and bereaved families to share their knowledge and experience through this survey to inform the development of this fund.

Access the survey and find out more here:

Share your thoughts to help inform the development of the Youth Mental Health Fund Share your thoughts to help inform the development of the Youth Mental Health Fund

Together with , we investigated bereavement in the context of homelessness and how best to improve the access and quality of support available - based on interviews with 80 persons of lived experience.

Register here: https://echo.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAodu2pqDkiHNKS8c3jh49T_7HU8rc-J22A #/registration