CareSearch updates

CareSearch has developed a GP Kit that is designed to support care planning, assessment and communication for patients coming to the end of their life and their families. GPs can find this a demanding but needed area of their practice. The information kit provides practical tool and resources to assist them in providing compassionate and comprehensive care as well. The Kit also highlights practical resources they can share with their patients and their carers. GPs can order a printed version of the Kit or download the resources from the CareSearch GP Kit page within the GP Hub

We’re delighted to update our children’s booklist we developed as part of Dying2Learn. We now have two lists. One looks at International Award-Winning Children’s Books and Resources on Death and Dying (1.06MB pdf) while the other focuses on Australian Children’s Books on Death and Dying (2.47MB pdf). A great way to help children understand or start a conversation about life, death, grief and loss.

Copies of the CareSearch presentations made by members of team have now been loaded to the CareSearch presentations page.

You can view the following presentations that were made:

Thank you

The CareSearch project is supported by a talented and hardworking team of academics and professional staff.

Having decided to take up an opportunity in medical Education, Dr Raechel Damarell is leaving her role as the Senior Research Fellow for the CareSearch and palliAGED team. We thank her for her significant achievements in our projects in particular delivering the palliAGED Evidence Centre and the Improving Care content.

Dr Madeleine Juhrmann has also taken up a new position and finished her time as a CareSearch project Research Fellow.

Welcome

Making sure we still have great talent in the project team, we would like to welcome the following new team members:

• Dr Seth Nicholls who has taken up the Research Fellow role supporting CareSearch and palliAGED.  

• Dr Angela Rong Yang Zhang has also joined the research team helping us analyse data and prepare some new resources.  

• We also welcome Becky Kwok who joined us as the new Marketing Officer on 13 August.

With these changes, Professor Jennifer Tieman has taken over the leadership of the CareSearch and palliAGED project team and looks forwarding to meeting with the sector at the Oceanic and Ageing Australia Conferences.

The Dying to Know campaign 2025 invites Australians to face the realities of death with openness and intention. Through the Dying2Learn MOOC, CareSearch has helped spark honest discussions about death, legacy, and what truly matters, conversations that can benefit people at any stage of life. At July’s International Positive Psychology Association World Congress in Brisbane, Dying2Learn facilitator Dr Lauren Miller-Lewis highlighted how talking about legacy can make conversations about death easier and more meaningful. Want to know more? Dying2Learn resources are available anytime on the CareSearch website.

The CareSearch team is currently recruiting palliative care academic and clinical educators for a multi-methods study exploring how they value and use clinical evidence in their teaching. It is hoped that findings from a series of questionnaires and interviews will give us a better picture of the contribution made by CareSearch’s recently redeveloped and updated evidence resources to sector education, training, and service provision. This Ethics-approved study will run across June and July, with findings expected later in 2025.