East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices(EACH) and Hummingbird House have been working together ‘behind the scenes’ for several years. Their relationship was cemented when EACH hosted a visit with Hummingbird House co-founders and senior management in July 2015. Since then the two organisations have been in constant contact sharing skills, knowledge and expertise. As a result, Dr Linda Maynard from EACH, was more than thrilled to be invited to assist Hummingbird House nursing and family support teams prepare for the first children and families to access palliative care through the Queensland’s children’s hospice.
Her three week visit proved to be invaluable to Hummingbird House. Dr Maynard held various workshops with the team around Holistic Needs Assessment and the personalized approach to assessing the child and family. Dr Maynard and Elham Day, Hummingbird House Family Support Co-ordinator, worked together to host a workshop for external palliative care professionals from around Brisbane, Bear Cottage in Sydney and Very Special Kids in Melbourne. This workshop facilitated an important conversation around the network approach to palliative care. The workshop was a result a twinning agreement between EACH and Hummingbird House, which was facilitated by the International Children’s Palliative Care Network (ICPCN.
When asked about her visit, Dr Maynard said, “I have recognized it as a great privilege and truly humbling experience to come together with like minded people who have a genuine desire to develop children’s palliative care services and enhance care and support for children and their families throughout the massive geography of Queensland. I was also delighted, along with Lee-Anne Pedersen and Kelly Oldham, to visit with the nursing team at Bear Cottage Hospice in Sydney. Here, during our day visit, we were able to explore commonalities in our services and extend the burgeoning relationship between service providers in Eastern Australia and spread this to East Anglia in the UK!”
Kelly Oldham, clinical manager at Hummingbird House said, “We have embraced this model of care as we aim to reach beyond the building to support the regional and remote areas of Queensland. The team feel humbled to have been supported and guided by Linda during this very busy phase as we opened the doors for the first time to children and families. Thank you very much for the ICPCN’s support and the twinning agreement, the benefits have been immense and will continue into the future.”
Hummingbird House and EACH have many ideas for continued collaboration and plan to examine the impact of a person-centeredness approach and holistic assessment processes on the needs of individual children and their family members.
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