Developing skills - resources

For everyone

• The Australian Government Department offer a program of experience in the palliative approach (PEPA). To build on your capacity in delivering person and culture-centred care PEPA offer two separate workshop’s that can be attended either individually or both in addition to. PEPA provide a unique opportunity of a supervised observational placement (two to five days) that is intended for you to incorporate the palliative care principles that you have learned into your day to day practice. They also offer a reverse placement which involves a specialist palliative care staff member travelling to your workplace to facilitate learning.
• If you belong to an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander community that would like to know more about palliative care for your community, PEPA offers a workshop program and a learning guide to support health care providers who predominantly care for indigenous people.
• To understand more about experiential learning to increase palliative care competence among the indigenous workforce, read this article.
• For more courses in palliative care, visit the CareSearch education section which has a range of courses for health professionals, eLearning, for care workers, carers and volunteers and workforce development. Also visit the CareSearch short courses section where you will find a range of courses that run nationally and are continuously enrolling.
• For those that wishing to learn more about palliative care within the aged care context, visit palliAGED. This website offers a range of evidence and practice information resources for the Australian aged care sector. The information is trustworthy and aims to support health and care practitioners as well as resource developers. Visit the training and education section to see arrange of courses available.
• The Australian Institute for Loss and Grief offer a Bi-Cultural awareness, safety and inclusion program that aims to enhance service provider’s bi-cultural awareness and confidence. Their aim is to assist others to create a culturally safe environment and improve access to mainstream services in the absence of Aboriginal organisations.
• If you would like to learn more about diverse population groups, End of Life Directions for Aged Care (ELDAC) provide a good overview of various diverse population groups. They give particular consideration to diversity consideration in the context of palliative care.
• The ELDAC Linkages Toolkit is a tool that can be used to integrate services between aged, primary and palliative care. This resource places the individual at the centre of care and guides you to plan, do, check and act. There are various resources available to create the best possible palliative care and advance care planning services for older people in your care, with some focus on revising your services to continuously improve.
• An important part of palliative care is spiritual care. Spiritual Health Association offer professional development opportunities. The aim to educate others on the integration of evidence-based spiritual care in providing holistic care.

Reports:

• The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare website features Reports on palliative care services in Australia.
• Palliative Care Australia: National Palliative Care Standards 5th Edition outline nine palliative care standards to support the delivery of high quality palliative care.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

• The Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care have developed a Program of Experience in the Palliative Approach (PEPA). There are many workshops available including two specific to health professionals providing palliative care to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. IPEPA is part of this program which aims to break down the barriers to palliative care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across Australia. It facilitates a two-way learning process that prepares mainstream and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health professionals to deliver high quality, holistic, culturally responsive palliative care.
• If you are interested in improving your communications skills when supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders visit palliAGED. They provide tip sheets for care workers and nurses.
• The CareSearch website has various resources and information to help the health care workforce and carers in providing palliative care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
• To find resources for each health profession relating to the five capabilities (respect, communication, safety and quality, reflection, advocacy) of the refreshed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Curriculum Framework visit Health InfoNet: Cultural safety for health professionals.
• The palliative care curriculum for undergraduates has learning resources for those caring for Aboriginal populations. Visit Palliative Care Curriculum for Undergraduates (PCC4U): Communication principles when caring for Aboriginal people section to learn more.
• See the palliAGED tip sheets for care workers and nurses to learn more about communication with First Australians.
• To watch videos about cultural competence and cultural safety in the emergency setting, see the Indigenous health and cultural competency program.

Care leavers

• The Healing Foundation Working with the stolen generation: understanding trauma factsheet (296kb pdf) provides information for GP’s to improve services. It is highlighted that this factsheet is a starting point to understanding the diversity among Stolen Generation survivors.
• Altura Learning Care leavers in Aged Care course delves into the issues faced by older people entering aged care facilities who were raised in institutions or foster homes. It identifies strategies to address their needs.
• Forgotten Australians supporting survivors of institutional and out of home care (350kb pdf) is a booklet that intends to inform health professionals and service providers about the long term trauma faced by forgotten Australians and help them to relate to those experiencing this trauma.
• The palliAGED Care leavers section offers a range of resources for aged care health professionals including a video and a presentation on training sessions.

Cultural and linguistically diverse people

• To learn more about people who are culturally and linguistically diverse, visit the CareSearch: Multicultural health professional page. If you would like to read more about the CALD community within the context of palliative care and death and dying, visit the ELDAC: Australia’s ageing Culturally and Linguistically Diverse population section.
• The LifeMind CALD section provides information about the link between the CALD population and suicide. They suggest that consideration should be given to the diversity of CALD people as their identity may overlap with other communities such as LGBTI people, young people, older people.
• The Centre for Cultural Diversity in Ageing: Practice guides provide information for direct service provision. While individual consumer needs must be considered, these guides offer useful practical information around accessing interpreters, communication, food and nutrition, digital inclusion and many more.

Training resources:

• PCC4U: Topic 4 Culture-centred care offers a module that will help you to understand culture in caring for people with a life limiting illness and apply the principles of culture centred care.
• To enhance your communication skills visit the palliAGED website where you can find a tip sheet for care workers and for nurses.
• Partners in Culturally Appropriate Care (PICAC) offer a range of workshops, training, information sessions, fact sheets and guides that help aged care service providers to deliver care that meets the needs of CALD people.
• For a range of online training resources visit the Centre for Cultural Diversity in Ageing: Training and Professional Development section, there may be a fee for the courses.
• Multicultural Learning and development offer training in culture in aging. This is a free course and takes a full day.
• For a refugee and asylum seeking experiences online course visit Foundation House: Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture: Online learning. They provide two modules that take two hours to complete and is a pre-requisite for other workshops on offer.

Homelessness

• The Homeless Palliative Care Toolkit is a set of resources designed for health professionals working with people who are homeless to use to recognise deterioration and help to get access to and plan person centred care.
• palliAGED: Homeless People provide useful resources such as policy and management considerations and research papers.
• To help you get started at having discussions with homeless people about anxiety and depression, Beyond Blue: tune in now modules have four modules for homelessness workers to improve their skills.

Intellectual disability

• To develop your skills in talking end of life to people with intellectual disability use the online toolkit provided by Talking End of Life: online toolkit.
• To hear a real story of a person with intellectual disability who experienced his father die and the impact of poor communication and education on his experience, visit the University of Hertfordshire- when my dad died.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex

• To improve your awareness of the need for inclusion in the aged care sector, watch this educational video from the Department of Health and Aged Care LGBTI: Inclusion and Awareness in aged care.
• If you would like to improve your understanding of inclusive practice and access training in LGBTI in aging and family violence, access Rainbow Health: Training Programs. To learn more about Rainbow Health Australia, visit Rainbow Health Australia: Supporting LGBTIQ health and well-being. They also offer a resource library that can be used by organisations and individuals to develop services that are LGBTIQ inclusive.
• To access eLearning courses ACON: Pride training provide a one-hour session that will introduce you or your aged care staff to the principles of working in an inclusive way.
• Here are some useful resources that can help to understand inclusive practice:
• Department of Health and Aged Care: National LGBTI Ageing and Aged Care Strategy (3.93MB pdf)
• Latrobe University- GLHV: Beyond ‘we treat everyone the same’ (569kb pdf)
• Intersex Human Rights Australia: Ageing
• Fight dementia: Caring for LGBTI people with dementia (2.12MB pdf)
• palliAGED Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) Individuals
• CareSearch: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI).

Older people

Training and development:

• ACON: Pride training is an online module designed educate aged care staff on providing an LGBTI inclusive service.
• At the palliAGED: Practice Centre you will find evidence-based tools and resources that can help you.
• To learn more about collecting a life story from older adults living in long term care, the Quality Palliative Care in Long Term Care Alliance (QPC-LTC) Social History document (1.67MB pdf) will help you.
• Use this guide to understand the barriers to care faced by those living alone with dementia. Being well supported at home with dementia can help facilitate patient choice of dying in place. Living alone with dementia - research to practice guide (948kb pdf).

Resources:

• LGBTIQ+ Health Australia: Silver Rainbow
• Fight dementia: Caring for LGBTI people with dementia (2.12MB pdf).

Rural and remote areas

• If you are an allied health professional and are looking into establishing practice in the rural and remote setting, Services for rural and remote allied health (SARRAH) offer an online toolkit that consists of five modules to help with the transition.
• Life in Mind provide information relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and their priority for suicide prevention in Australia. Visit their website to learn more about best practice guidelines and social and emotional wellbeing and mental health services in Aboriginal Australia.
• For healthcare related resources relating to rural and remote populations visit PalliAGED: Rural and Remote Populations.
• Mental health training is available for health professionals working in drought and bush fire affected remote communities through CRANA Plus. Their resources include webinars, podcasts, resources and workshops.

Veterans

• To access resources that are relevant to people working with veterans who have mental health issues and training programs, visit Phoenix Australia.