Incorporating Bereaved Parents as Faculty Facilitators and Educators in Teaching Principles of Palliative and End-of-Life Care:

Background:Education and training for interdisciplinary pediatric providers requires training in principles of palliative and end-of-life (EOL) care. The experiences of bereaved parents can inform and enhance palliative care educational curricula in uniquely powerful and valuable ways. The objective of this study is to present an innovative palliative care educational program facilitated by trained bereaved parents who serve as volunteer educators in local and national palliative care educational forums and to describe how incorporation of bereaved parents in these educational forums affects participant comfort with communication and management of children at the EOL.Methods:Parent educators underwent both general and session-specific training and participated in debriefings following each session. Survey tools were developed or adapted to determine how bereaved parent educators affected participant experiences in 3 different educational forums. Pre- and postsession surveys with incorporation of retrospec...