Video Library

Your Child

 
Why did I get sick? Conversations about illness
 
Talking about Esteban's illness
 
Teaching Foster to communicate
 
Gia can't tell us how she feels
 
Foster is the light of my life
 
Esteban's support dog
 
Preparing for seizures helps
 
We live with uncertainty every day
 
Living with anxiety
 
I needed to slow down and learn from my kids
 
Jaxon lived his life very well
 
Yes, I was a helicopter parent but I still let Jaxon make some choices
 
Supporting teens
 
Finding new ways for siblings to connect
 
Kids deal with hard things differently than adults
 
It's important to show emotion and to pair it with explanation
 
The importance of rituals
 
Talking about the really hard questions
 
How we helped Tait with his worries about dying
 
Follow the child's lead in tough conversations
 
How can we include and support kids when hard things are happening?
 
Talking with a child about their illness
 
Staying strong and breaking down
 
Getting a diagnosis and meeting other children with Cockayne’s Syndrome made J’s prognosis real
 
It was hard to admit there was nothing left to do to treat Jay’s disease
 
Let her live until she dies
 
What makes your child happy?
 
The five C’s
 
Opening up the conversation when kids want to talk
 
Opening the door for questions that kids might have
 
Asking kids: “What are you wondering about?”
 
Using art to get those big feelings out
 
Let some “air out of the balloon” of big feelings
 
Talking about how we can help with a child who is going to die
 
Explaining what's happening makes things less scary for children
 
Share information: Lead the way and then, take your child’s lead
 
Answering both big and small questions about dying
 
How kids and teens react to sad news
 
Talking about how care needs change as a child gets older
 
Difficult decisions are made with love and compassion
 
The three W's: what are you wondering, worried about and wishing for?
 
Why it helps to tell the truth
 
Bringing back a sense of control for parents of a child in perinatal care
 
When families receive a devastating diagnosis
 
Acknowledging grief and love
 
Staying with your baby after death
 
Memory making and momentos
 
Normalizing grief
 
Your baby will always be a part of your life
 
Finding grace during a very hard time
 
Keeping Finn in my world
 
Be with me in my grief
 
Family, friends and normal activities help
 
He was a beautiful baby
 
Grief changes
 
Helping parents through perinatal palliative care
 
Reframing hope, legacy work and capturing experiences
 
Reframing hope and talking about loss
 
Ways to recognize and remember the child that died
 
Perinatal palliative care
 
Our coping strategies
 
Legacy making after Ethan’s birth
 
Legacy making during my pregnancy
 
We had to make difficult decisions
 
Ethan’s birth and his death

Your Family

 
Family, friends and normal activities help
 
To be strong, take care of yourself
 
My advice to other families
 
When strangers approach you
 
How we've coped
 
Coping with grief
 
New priorities guide decisions
 
Dealing with anger and frustration
 
Coping with trauma
 
Managing stress
 
Making changes at work and home
 
Grief: I recognized that I needed help
 
I know how much my son loved me
 
Finding rainbows
 
Grief: Learning to celebrate
 
My son Tait taught me so much in his short life
 
We celebrate good days
 
Respite care helps the whole family (1)
 
Living with dying (1)
 
The impact of illness on siblings
 
Talking to our other boys about Foster's illness
 
Foster's illness is "normal" for his brothers
 
Reactions and support received can be surprising
 
Support and friendships
 
Our daughter has amazing resilience
 
The myth of marital breakup
 
When friends let you down
 
I had support but had to be strong on my own
 
Respite workers helped me manage as a single, working parent
 
I didn't want to always talk about sickness
 
We lived a pretty regular life for five years
 
Protecting people around me
 
Living with constant worry was hard
 
My daughter's childhood was very affected by having a sick brother
 
I was anxious about something happening to Jaxon
 
Being a parent and not just a caregiver for a sick child
 
Trying to make space for the emotions of everyone in the family
 
How Jaxon's illness affected his sister
 
When siblings of a sick child feel neglected
 
It really helps to create memories and keepsakes
 
A hockey experience
 
Telling stories and creating memories through legacy projects
 
Journaling and telling stories
 
Legacy making: hand moulds
 
Legacy making: Baby hand moulds
 
Legacy making: Creating fabric hugs
 
Legacy making doesn’t have to wait until end of life
 
Creating and recording fun times together
 
I didn't want people to feel sorry for me
 
Working out helped my anxiety
 
I got knocked down again and again, but my happy child kept me going
 
My support system and my own conviction kept me going
 
Helping Aislinn grieve her brother's death
 
Respite care makes a huge difference
 
Finding resources to help lessen the financial burden
 
I'm allowed to be sad
 
I'm not ready for outside support yet
 
I was blessed with different kinds of support after Jay died
 
Feeling safe
 
Pediatric palliative care supported my grief
 
Concrete suggestions
 
I feel like I'm living again
 
Connecting with other families
 
Checking in with siblings when a child has died
 
Feeling connected after a sibling has died
 
Kids can take things very literally
 
Creating a memory box
 
Legacy making during my pregnancy
 
Legacy making after Ethan’s birth

Your Healthcare Team

 
Pediatric palliative care helps with big decisions
 
Keon’s decision to stop cancer treatment
 
Helping families make difficult decisions
 
What is pediatric palliative care?
 
How palliative care helped us
 
Palliative care provides reassurance
 
What does Pediatric Palliative Care encompass
 
Being referred to pediatric palliative care
 
Palliative care seemed scary at first
 
Pediatric palliative care takes care of the whole family
 
Advance care planning - thinking about the future
 
Advance care planning will not change what we are doing right now
 
Our wishes for Gia
 
Time frames are difficult
 
Making a decision without a clear diagnosis.
 
Choices don’t have to be made at the expense of other treatment decisions
 
Choosing between home, hospital, or hospice at end of life
 
Decisions can be reassessed and revisited
 
Including children in decision making
 
It gave Tait great comfort to be involved in his care planning
 
We were always prepared with a DNR
 
How we help families set goals and make difficult decisions
 
Reframing hope, legacy work and capturing experiences
 
Conversations about advance care planning can give kids a sense of control
 
How hope changes over time
 
Collaborating with your child to make decisions
 
I'm proud that I spoke WELL for my child.
 
I wanted my son to die peacefully, on his own terms
 
How we support parents and children to talk about goals of care
 
How my understanding of pediatric palliative care shifted
 
Palliative care is about quality of life
 
Moving from NICU to a children's hospice was very difficult to accept
 
We bring what we've learned from families to our work
 
We're a team that focuses on living
 
The benefit of an early introduction to palliative care
 
Creating a relationship with a children’s hospice through respite care
 
We are "hopeful worriers"
 
Being honest about hard things can help kids focus more on the good things
 
Pediatric Palliative Care is not just about life and death
 
Supporting parents through difficult decisions, regrets and guilt
 
The importance of respite care
 
Using respite care
 
Counselling and support can come in many different forms
 
Find someone to talk to
 
My kids really thrived in a community of their peers where people understood their differences
 
It takes a team to care for a sick child
 
Respite helped me care for myself
 
Supporting parents to be parents
 
What pediatric palliative care hospice has done for our family
 
Preparing for visits
 
Guidance from the health care team
 
We learned all we could and asked challenging questions
 
Respecting my patient's privacy
 
What matters is what's important to each child and family
 
Transitioning from pediatric palliative care to adult palliative care
 
Palliative care is about partnering with families and talking about the whole picture
 
Taking a deep breath: Processing a diagnosis and new information
 
Helping parents through perinatal palliative care
 
Perinatal palliative care
 
We had to make difficult decisions
 
Our first introduction to pediatric palliative care

Your School & Community

 
Starting a new school
 
Taking Esteban into the community
 
Connecting with other families
 
A space for grief
 
Questions from others
 
School was Jaxon's happy place

Care at the End of Life

 
Honouring your children
 
Marking special occasions
 
Feel what you feel
 
How many children do you have?
 
My son Tait taught me so much in his short life
 
How Tait will live on
 
Finding happy ways to honour Jay
 
I'll tell my future child about Jay
 
What Jaxon taught me and advice I would share with other parents
 
I think about her every day
 
Kids sometimes worry that they’ll be forgotten
 
Tait planned two celebrations of his life--one for before he died and one for after he died
 
It took us time to bury Kalyana's ashes
 
Helping families understand funeral and burial options
 
A more expensive funeral may not be better
 
Honouring a child’s life in special ways
 
Plans and preparations before Jay's death
 
Kalyana died at the children's hospice
 
A red carpet goodbye to my daughter
 
"You can let go": Giving permission to die
 
Kalyana's last days:Learning to care for our daughter at home
 
Jaxon's last days of life
 
What if I'm not there when my child dies?
 
It was hard, but I'm so happy we decided to move Jay to Emily's House children's hospice
 
Emily's House felt like home and I'm super grateful for the support we got
 
Covid has impacted patient's decisions around where they want to be cared for
 
Planning for end-of-life: The involvement of palliative care and desire to be at home
 
Rural care
 
Jay was surrounded with love in his last moments
 
Ethan’s birth and his death
 
Staying with your baby after death

Grief & Bereavement

 
Living with many different griefs
 
Feeling safe
 
Pediatric palliative care supported my grief
 
Concrete suggestions
 
I feel like I'm living again
 
Taking time to heal
 
We remember differently
 
Learning to release sadness
 
Moving through grief
 
What's normal grief?
 
Family grief
 
Missing Stella
 
Continuous grief
 
My extended family's grief
 
Grief reactions within a family
 
Learning to be strong
 
Grief is a spiral
 
I was blessed with different kinds of support after Jay died
 
I'm not ready for outside support yet
 
I've learned that I don't have any control over grief
 
I'm allowed to be sad
 
When you learn to live with grief, love comes flooding back
 
We show Aislinn that it's okay and important to express feelings
 
I'm learning how to grieve in the way that I need to grieve
 
How I feel about being happy and someday being a mom again
 
I was relieved that she was no longer suffering
 
Moving through grief one day at a time
 
Grieving with parents and families
 
Giving parents a space to talk about anticipatory grief
 
My grief built up throughout my children's lives
 
Tears travel
 
Grief wasn't what I expected
 
The first celebrations are the hardest
 
Kids grieve differently. They "jump in puddles" while adults "walk in rivers"
 
I'm doing this because she lived
 
It's wonderful when friends share memories and photos
 
Answering the question "Do you have kids?"
 
Figuring out who I am after Jaxon's death
 
Grieving the death of my child
 
Giving birth to our second daughter
 
Alera will always know she has a big sister
 
Grief changes