PediPathways provides various services
to its patients and their families.
PediPathways has developed a model for
quality and compassionate care for children 0-21 years of age facing
a life-limiting illness. Comfort Care involves a team-oriented approach
to expert medical care, pain management, emotional and spiritual
support tailored to the childs special needs and wishes. Supportive
care is provided to the patient’s loved ones as well.
The focus of PediPathways, relies on
the belief that each of us has the right to live free from pain,
die with dignity, and that our loved ones have access to the necessary
support. The focus is on care that is provided in the child’s
home or where ever the child happens to be. Care is available to
infants, children, and adolescents of any religion, race, or social
economical status.
PediPathways offers two paths
of care:
Palliative Care: Provides
care to patients with a life-limiting illness in the earlier course
of their disease process. Who may still be in active treatment or
may not yet be ready to elect the hospice care benefit. The patient
must meet all home health regulatory requirements and have a documented
life-limiting illness to receive care.
Hospice Care: Provides
care to patients diagnosed with progressive diseases. Our goal transitions
from curing a patient to relieving our patients of pain and suffering.
Hospice care is for any person who has cancer or non-cancer illnesses.
Both paths of care offer pain and symptom management, assessment,
consultation, and supportive services to the patient and family.
Levels of Care
Routine Home Hospice Care
PediPathways believes in bringing care to wherever you
call home. We strive to provide an environment of care that is comfortable
for our patients and their families. Often, this means providing
care in the patient's own home. Our team of professionals schedule
regular home visits to ensure that medical, social, and emotional
needs are met.
Continuous Hospice Care
Sometimes a patient has a medical crisis that needs close medical
attention. When this happens, we can arrange for inpatient care,
or PediPathways staff can provide round-the-clock care in the home.
When the crisis is over, the patient can return to routine care
in the home.
Inpatient Hospice Care
When pain or symptoms cannot be controlled at home, the patient
might be taken to a hospital or other inpatient care center. When
the symptoms are under control, the patient can return home.
Respite Care
Many patients have their own caregivers, often family members. When
caregivers need a rest from their care giving responsibilities,
patients can stay in a hospital or other inpatient care center for
up to five days.
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When a tragic event such as a sudden
death affects your school, neighborhood or home and children are
involved, our crisis intervention team will bring trained professionals
to you to provide counseling, support and information.
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Our Lending Library has resources that
touch on many vital topics relating to end-of life care and support.
We also have information specifically geared for children and teens.
These resources are available to anyone who feels that they may
be of help to themselves or to someone they care about. To check
out a book or video, stop in at PediPathways main office:
44 Hancock St., North Quincy, MA 02171
Monday - Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00
pm.
If you like what you see, consider making
a donation of money or books to support the replacement and purchase
of news resources for the library.
If you are unable to visit us to pick
up materials fromt he lending library, contact us to make arrangements
to check out items by mail. The borrowers pay for postage and provides
us with a deposit that is returned when the book/video is returned.
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Volunteers contribute greatly to the
success of PediPathways by providing direct patient support, encouragement
and/or valuable agency support by performing a variety of much needed
office tasks. It takes a whole team to provide comfort to the termnally
ill at the end of their lives. Volunteers in the program assist
in achieving PediPathways' goal of hope, relief and comfort.
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Eligibility
Criteria for Teen Involvement
-
Age: Our program is for high school
students, grades 9-12, approximately ages 14-18
-
Application/Screening: intake interview;
application, references, code of ethics, confidentiality statement,
publicity release
-
Parental consent
-
TB test (needs parental consent)
-
Hepatitis B test (not required,
but offered)
-
Completion of training: 18-hour
Patient and Family Support Training required for any volunteer
who will have direct contact with patients or families.
-
Transportation: Teens must have
own transportation to training classes and volunteer assignments
What kind
of training do you do with teens?
We offer two levels of training. The
minimum is a 3-hour orientation, which would prepare the teens to
be involved in support activities such as working in our office.
For students who wish to have direct patient and family contact,
we require an 18-hour curriculum called Patient and Family Support
Training. Topics covered in the longer curriculum include communication
skills, the interdisciplinary team, personal loss awareness, ethics
and patient advocacy, information about standard precautions, special
populations, pain and symptom management and the volunteer's role
in spiritual care, psychosocial grief, and bereavement. Hospice
nurses, social workers, volunteer coordinators and other team members
participate in the training.
Volunteers complete a one-page written
evaluation at the end of every training with two open-ended questions
about the key messages and how to improve the training, and a Likert
scale checklist about the content and process of the training. In
addition, once volunteers (both teens and adults) complete the training,
a volunteer coordinator conducts a one-on-one interview with that
new volunteer. The goal of the interview is two-fold: 1. To assess
the quality and effect of the training, i.e., what did this person
gain from the training? Is this person ready to have direct contact
with patients and families? 2. To assess the new volunteer's interests
and skills so as to assist the coordinator in making a good patient
and/or family "match."
Various
Roles Available: What Do Teens Do?
What kinds
of roles are available for the teen volunteers to play?
A large percent of teens would be actively
seeing patients or families and therefore are involved in some kind
of direct service. The remaining percent are doing special events,
office work and fund raising kinds of things. Some of the teens
do both kinds of activities — see patients but also work in
an office, do a fashion show, or whatever. Most volunteers are seeing
patients and families in the home setting, most of the time to support
children in those homes. (I.e.: siblings) We don't really have teens
going into patients homes and providing respite for a patient while
the caregiver goes out, like the adults often do. We never have
teens transporting patients and families. Due to auto liability
restrictions, volunteers have to be 18 years old to transport patients.
However, may be asked to run errands for our families.
For a first visit, the volunteer coordinator
or an experienced adult volunteer accompanies the teen volunteer.
This adult helps set the tone and establish what is expected from
the teen as well as confirming the family's needs and expectations
for the teen volunteer.
So in the home setting, it's mainly to
see a child in that home. Sometimes a teen volunteer will visit
a child who is being seen by a counselor through our bereavement
services because someone has died in his or her family. In these
instances, when teen volunteers are paired with one of these children,
the teen goes in to help with homework, play on the computer or
just visit. The teen volunteer is spending time together with the
child as a friend.
What kind
of time requirement do you make on teen volunteers once they've
been trained?
It's not a stringent requirement, as
such. We really work with the students and their schedules. We do
ask them to commit to going regularly, as in once a week, to visit
a patient. But depending on how the patient is doing, and also the
student's schedule, one week the student might spend an hour, and
the next week he or she might spend three. That's okay. We work
around the students' schedules, and also how the patient is doing.
What kind
of documentation of patient contact do you expect of students?
When students make a visit, they fill
out a volunteer report form, just as our adult volunteers do. This
document then goes in the patients chart.
Are you a caregiver or consumer?
Are you a hospice or palliative care
professional?
If so, and you are looking for resources
that can answer your questions and help you be more effective in
working with people at the end of their lives, then look no further!
PediPathways Marketplace gives you on-line
access to the latest audio and video resources, books and educational
materials on hospice, palliative and end of life care.
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Many people find that puppets can help
shy children express themselves. The soft, life-like animal puppets
can be a comfort for children working through difficult times, and
have been toldt hat our puppets have helped some children to reveal
their experiences and emotions.
Art therapy provides youth the opportunity
to use art materials for self-expression. Often, youth use the art
to express what they cannot say or do not feel comfortable saying.
Pet therapy with a dog focuses on components
of healthy relationships. Dogs are utilized as a creative resource
in helping the youth learn about their behavior and how it affects
relationships. Some of the topics covered include communication,
hygiene, feelings, behavior and consequences, perception, defensiveness
and expression.
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