Last week, the International Children’s Palliative Care Network (ICPCN) provided a week-long Training of Trainers (ToT) Course in Prague, in the Czech Republic.
Following on from an introductory course on children’s palliative care held in the capital city in June and a more advanced course in September, a group of 10 medical professionals were trained to help them become proficient trainers in children’s’ palliative care through the entire country.
Financial support for the training was provided by Česká společnost paliativní medicíny with technical and educational support from ICPCN. An outcome of the original training has been the development of a Working group for Children’s Palliative care (Pracovní skupina pro dĕtskov paliativní pécí) under the strong leadership of Dr Mahulena Mojžíšová.
The enthusiastic group of ten participants, which included medical doctors, a researcher, two paediatric nurses and a special needs teacher, were provided with a theoretical basis on education for adults as well as pointers on good presentation skills. Topics covered by the trainers, Dr Mike Miller, Maraliza de Haan and Sue Boucher included:
- Role of a facilitator
- Group dynamics
- Leadership and teamwork in the classroom
- Emotional literacy
- Co-ordination and planning of training
- Conducting a needs assessment
- Coaching
- Good communication skills
- Effective presenting
- Characteristics of adult learners
- How we learn
- Self-directed learning
- Teaching styles / modes
- Using case studies and experiences in training
- The teaching and training cycle
- Curriculum design and lesson planning
- Assessment and evaluation
On the final two days of the training, participants were each asked to give a 45 minute presentation on a topic related to children’s palliative care after which they were given constructive feedback from the trainers and their peers on their presentation skills, the logical and natural flow of their presentation and content, their awareness of group dynamics, their use of teaching modes and dealing with challenging questions and behaviour.
Course participants expressed their satisfaction with and appreciation for the training, particularly as they are in the process of planning an Introduction to Children’s Palliative Care course for health professionals in the Czech Republic. The ICPCN is committed to continue to assist with the development of this course as well as to add e-learning courses in Czech to the ICPCN e-learning website.
All of the training sessions were also attended by Prase, a toy pink pig, which has been adopted by the Working Group as their mascot.
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