PACE for Personal Support Workers (PSWs)
Advance your Palliative Care Knowledge and Career Prospects
The PACE for PSWs program delivers evidence-based, flexible online training specifically designed for PSWs.
Developed by industry experts in collaboration with PSWs and educators, PACE for PSWs offers the guidance and tools to provide exceptional, compassionate and meaningful care that truly makes a difference to the lives of individuals with life-limiting illnesses and their families.
What’s more, earning this nationally recognized palliative care certificate will boost your professional profile, helping you stand out to future employers and expand your career opportunities.
For a head start on the standardized tools covered in the program, read our guide on how to read a Palliative Performance Scale score.
2. ACTIVATE your account
3. ENROL in PACE for PSWs. Choose the full program or a single course.
PACE for PSWs Program – 10 courses and certification $225 + tax
PACE Single Course $50 + tax
Group discounts and workplace packages are available. Contact us to discuss tailored solutions for your organization.
create accountWhy Choose PACE for PSWs?
Flexible and Supportive Learning
- A program of 10 bite-size self-paced courses to fit around your work, family, and other commitments.
- Interactive and motivating learning using wide-ranging tools including video tutorials, quizzes, case studies, and real-life scenarios to deepen your understanding.
- Many PSWs who enroll onto the program have access to a community of learners and expert instructors for ongoing support and guidance throughout their learning journey.
Practical and Relevant Content
- Each module is immediately applicable to your work in healthcare and home care settings.
- Relevant key topics including symptom management, communication strategies, ethical decision-making, and grief support.
Skill Development and Certification
- Gain Canadian and Provincial palliative and end-of-life care competencies, skills and knowledge using the latest concepts and best practice to strengthen your ability to care as a healthcare team member.
- Enhance your career by adding sought-after palliative care training and a National Palliative Care Education Certificate to your credentials.
What you’ll learn
PACE for PSWs empowers you to provide high-quality, culturally-sensitive, practical and emotional palliative care whilst maintaining your personal resilience.
- Gain insight into how people experience the end of life and how to ensure their comfort.
- Master best practice communications that effectively connect with patients and their families.
- Develop practical and emotional skills to provide care during the last days and hours and to support those experiencing loss and grief.
- Learn how to work with diverse cultural groups by creating a culturally safe space and using a trauma-informed approach.
- Build a personalized self-care plan to help you manage workplace stresses and compassion fatigue.
PACE for PSWs Course Listings
Ten interactive online courses that are 2 to 3 hours each.
- “I don’t know what to say” Preparing to care, communicate and connect
- Integrating a palliative approach to support people to live as they die
- ‘Being with’ and ‘ways of being”: Boundaries and the family dance
- Supporting physical comfort: Part 1 – Principles, medications, standardized tools, and supporting a person experiencing pain
- Supporting physical comfort: Part 2 – Supporting a person experiencing dyspnea, delirium, anorexia and cachexia, nausea and vomiting.
- Supporting psychosocial needs: Part 1
- Supporting psychosocial needs: Part 2 – Loss and grief
- Supporting during last days and following death
- Caring for self while you care for others
- Supporting cultural safety
Is PACE for PSWs right for you?
PACE for PSWs is built for personal support workers who want to bring a palliative approach to the care they already give. You may be new to palliative care, or you may have done this work for years and want a recognized credential to show for it. The program is designed for both. You do not need any previous training in palliative care to take PACE.
The 10 courses are self-paced and take 2 to 3 hours each, so you can fit them around your work, family and other commitments. Each one applies directly to your work in health care and home care settings, and completing the program adds a National Palliative Care Certificate to your credentials.
Employers can enrol their teams too. Group discounts and workplace packages are available, so a workplace can train its staff together.
Frequently asked questions
PACE for PSWs is for personal support workers who want practical, evidence-based training in a palliative approach to care. It suits PSWs who are new to palliative care and experienced PSWs who want a nationally recognized certificate. You do not need any previous training in palliative care.
The program has 10 self-paced online courses, each 2 to 3 hours long, so the full program is about 20 to 30 hours of learning. You work through the courses at your own pace, around your work and family commitments.
The full program, with all 10 courses and the certificate, costs $225 plus tax. A single course costs $50 plus tax. Group discounts and workplace packages are available.
Yes. The course “Providing Culturally Safe Care with an Indigenous Lens” is free. All parties jointly agreed to offer it for free in support of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action, made possible through a financial contribution from the Saint Elizabeth Foundation.
Learners develop national palliative care competencies. Upon successful completion they receive a National Palliative Care Certificate. PACE for PSWs was developed through a partnership between the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association, Hospice Palliative Care Ontario and Life and Death Matters.
The courses cover communicating with the person and their family, supporting physical comfort (including pain, difficult breathing, delirium, nausea and loss of appetite), psychosocial needs, loss and grief, care in the last days and hours and after death, culturally safer care, and caring for yourself while you care for others.
Create an account, activate it, then enrol in either the full PACE for PSWs program or a single course. PACE for PSWs is available in both English and French.
There is no end date. Once you enrol, you keep access to your courses.
Yes. Group discounts and workplace packages are available. Contact us to discuss options for your organization.
Acknowledgements
The PACE for PSWs program was developed through a partnership between The Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association, Hospice Palliative Care Ontario and Life and Death Matters. Program made possible through a financial contribution from Health Canada and the Sovereign Order of St. John of Jerusalem (The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of Health Canada). Special thanks to St Elizabeth Health Care for their content, advice and expertise on cultural safety and indigenous awareness.
