The CPCET Standard Framework for Advance Care Planning for Children is an appendix to the main CPCET Education Standard Framework which can be accessed here.
The framework is not intended to regulate or limit education and training, but to provide a framework which we hope organisations, health professionals and educationalists will want to use to coordinate, and quality assure their teaching and learning around advance care planning. As with the main Framework, educators (in clinical and HE settings) are encouraged to design their teaching using Gabbay et al.(2014) 2 pyramid approach which proposes that to improve practice, technical and soft skills must be combined with learning as a team, each as a side of a pyramid, where each side must be developed at the same time to build the pyramid. Over emphasis on one aspect will hinder the development of the pyramid, and the learning. Gabbay and his colleagues point out that a secure organisational foundation is required to ensure the pyramid is built on a secure foundation. A secure institutional commitment to children’s palliative care with well-developed understanding and policies provides this foundation.
The advance care planning proficiencies were designed to be used in conjunction with CPCET Education Standard Framework and adopt the principles set out in the Framework. One of which is that proficiencies are envisaged to build across the levels such that the Specialist would be able to demonstrate the proficiencies from all other levels. These proficiencies are intended to inform a standard approach to teaching and education programs and to staff development in practice. They recognise the complexity of palliative care and where creativity and managed risks are utilised to empower people to plan for, deliver and evaluate children dying well and having good deaths. They are not intended to replace an employer’s process of certifying individuals as proficient to design and record Advance Care Plans (ACP) for children and their carers.
The CPCET Education Standard Framework for Advance Care Planning can be downloaded here from the ICPCN website.