Supporting your comfort or your child’s comfort
How to support your comfort or your child’s comfort
Table of Contents
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Introduction
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Understanding Pain Management with Medication
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Working Together to Manage Pain and Symptom Resources
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Involving Your Child in Their Care
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Resources From Partners at BC Children’s Hospital
Introduction
No parent ever wants their child to experience pain or suffer, and when symptoms are present or changing, Canuck Place works with your child’s healthcare providers, the child and families to support care and to embrace and enjoy life to the best of their ability. Suffering takes many forms, and pediatric palliative care addresses the many forms and unique experience of suffering with a whole-person approach to care by providing compassion, guidance, and a road map in the uncertain and challenging territory.
Our team focuses on managing pain control, maximizing function, alleviating suffering, and supporting a child and their family through medications, physical, and psychological methods. This page provides information, resources, and links to help support children and youth living with a serious illness on the Canuck Place program who are experience pain and/or difficult symptoms.
We partner with a child and their family on a one-to-one basis to create individualized comfort care plans and supportive care resources to manage pain and symptoms. Symptoms can change, so these care plans are ongoing and modified to support the child’s changing symptoms. Pain and symptom management plans are co-created to include helpful medications, along with physical and psychological interventions to support the whole child. Canuck Place is available 24/7 through the 24-Hour Clinical Care Line.
Understanding pain management with medications
- Managing Pain with Medication Information Sheets – Youth Edition
- Managing Pain with Medication Information Sheets – Caregiver Edition
Understanding common medications for pain and symptom management
Understanding routes of administration
- How to draw up medications
- Buccal medications
- Transdermal medications
- Subcutaneous medications
- Intranasal medications
Working together to manage pain and symptoms resources
- Symptom Log
- Assessment Template (OPQRSTUV)
Involving your child in their care
Involving a child/youth in healthcare decisions and care planning supports children to feel valued and empowered. Involving children can help them cope better with treatments and build trust with healthcare environments and the people involved in supporting their health and care. Ask your Canuck Place care provider how to support your child’s involvement in their care.
Canuck Place works together with both families and healthcare professionals involved in the child’s care. Canuck Place partners with BC Children’s and Women’s Hospital acknowledging the priority of Comfort through the joint agreement on the C&W Pain and Comfort Policy.
CHILDREN’S HOSPICE PARTNERSHIP GUIDE©
The above link will provide you with some ways to explore together as a family and help build your confidence in approaching serious illness conversations with children.
Canuck Place works together with both families and healthcare professionals involved in the child’s care. Canuck Place partners with BC Children’s and Women’s Hospital acknowledging the priority of Comfort through the joint agreement on the C&W Pain and Comfort Policy.
Mindfulness Resources
- How Mindfulness Empowers Us: An Animation Narrated by Sharon Salzberg
- Stress/Thinking: The Mind Body Connection
- Mindful Parenting
- 3 Keys to Mindful Parenting
- Everyday Mindfulness
- The Samurai and the Fly
- Headspace
- BreathR
- Calm
Useful Resources from Partners at BC Children’s Hospital
- BCCH Pain Management and Comfort Page: Provides resources, information and helpful links to support pain assessment and management of children and youth experiencing pain.
- BCC Family Resource Pain Library: A resource library to support learning about pediatric pain and how to manage it.
- Kelty Mental Health Centre: Supports families across the province navigate the mental health system, connect with peer support and access resources and tools to support well-being.