Co-development of an educational toolkit to integrate palliative approaches to care for workers in inner city settings

People who are vulnerable and marginalized such as those who have substance use disorders, mental illness, or are homeless are at high risk of death. Our research shows that they could benefit from palliative approaches to care but the inner city workers who most care for them like housing and harm reduction workers do not have much support and knowledge related to palliative approaches to care. We have worked for several years with a community-based action team to integrate palliative approaches to care into their work and have developed an educational toolkit prototype with them. In this Reach project, we propose to the funds to complete our user-centered design to ensure that toolkit is developed in ways that are relevant and useable for the intended audiences. Specifically, we will (a) turn the toolkit content into user friendly resources, videos and graphics, (b) engage community-based peer reviewers to provide feedback, and (c) develop and implement a dissemination plan for uptake. We anticipate with better prepared and supported inner city workers, people who are vulnerable and marginalized will have better outcomes at the end-of-life such as access to palliative care services when needed.

Team members: Jonathan Schmid (Victoria Hospice Society); Ashley Mollison (University of Victoria); Kara Whitlock (University of Waterloo); Piotr Burek (Vancouver Island Drug Checking Project); Robyn Kyle (Victoria Cool Aid Society); Annie Do (Victoria Hospice Society)