Age isn’t a barrier to the end of life. In many instances, those who face the most challenges as they experience a serious illness, dying, death or grief can often be the youngest members of our community, most notably school children.
We held a Schools Roundtable in June to gain insights into the needs of the region’s school children. Facilitated by Palliative Care Queensland’s CEO Shyla Mills, we were joined by school leaders from the Townsville Area, a state-wide paediatric palliative care service expert and a practitioner from Hummingbird House to gain their perspective, knowledge, and feedback on a report commissioned by PCQ and authored by Health Consumers Queensland. The report was created as a result of two Kitchen Table Discussions with school community members and their carers who had experience with serious illness, dying, death and grief.
The roundtable also provided a great opportunity to learn more about current supports in schools, paediatric palliative care services and a hospice, and what would be the most helpful information to include in the community fact sheet.
The result is a factsheet for the region’s educators, ‘Schools Support for the Townsville Area – caring for someone experiencing serious illness, dying, death or grief’, which is available at CELC-T Community Fact Sheet_Schools Support (palliativecareqld.org.au) and contains key information for supporting the region’s young people.
This project is funded by Northern Queensland Primary Health Network (NQPHN).
