Frequently Asked Questions

Palliative care is a comprehensive and compassionate approach to care that improves the quality of life of individuals with life-limiting illnesses and their families. It provides relief from symptoms, pain, and stress while addressing physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs throughout the illness journey. Palliative care is available to all patients with life-limiting illness regardless of age, prognosis, disease stage, or treatment choice.

Palliative care can benefit individuals of any age and at any stage of a serious illness. Palliative care:

1. Improves the quality of life for patients and families.
2. Reduces unnecessary or overly aggressive treatments and procedures.
3. Reduces emergency room visits and hospital stays.
4. Improves patient satisfaction and increases alignment between care delivered and patient preferences.
5. Lowers cost to the health care system.

Palliative care is more than just managing physical symptoms; it treats the whole person. By addressing their emotional, social, and spiritual needs, palliative care helps individuals living with a life-limiting illness and their families live their life as fully and as comfortably as possible.

Palliative care is designed to provide comprehensive and compassionate support tailored to the needs of patients with serious illnesses and their families. This care can be delivered in various settings including in hospitals, at home, in hospices, in long-term care facilities, outpatient clinics, and community health centers, ensuring support wherever patients need it most.

Pallium Canada’s award-winning Learning Essential Approaches to Palliative Care (LEAP) courses is Canada’s leading suite of courseware on palliative care for health care organizations and professionals.

LEAP courses provide health care professionals with the knowledge, skills and confidence to improve care for patients and families facing life-limiting illnesses, through an engaging and interactive learning experience.

Learn more about LEAP.

To find and register for a specific course, follow these steps:

1. Visit our Palliative Care Courses page to see a list of all available LEAP courses.
2. Browse through the course options to find the one that suits your needs.
3. Click on the course you’re interested in to view upcoming course times and detailed registration instructions.

LEAP courses are interprofessional and designed to meet the unique needs of health care professionals. Whether you require comprehensive training across various roles, specialized content for specific care setting or specialties, or profession-specific programs, there’s a LEAP course for you! They are categorized by colour to indicate their focus:

• General palliative care courses (purple): These courses meet the general needs of most health care professionals, providing comprehensive and interprofessional palliative care education.
• Care setting-specific courses (red): These courses are tailored to the context of particular care settings, such as long-term care facilities, home care, and more.
• Specialty-specific courses (red): These courses are designed to address the unique needs of diverse health care specialties, including pediatrics, cardiology, oncology and more.
• Profession-specific courses (orange): These are targeted palliative care courses designed for specific professions, such as personal support workers, paramedics, and more.
• Other specialized offerings (blue): These courses provide a comprehensive exploration of specific topics in palliative care and health care.

Explore our LEAP courses.

• Online: Learners engage with interactive, self-learning online modules complimented by facilitated case-based webinars led by Pallium’s certified LEAP facilitators.
• Hybrid: Learners engage with interactive, self-learning online modules complimented by facilitated case-based in-person workshops led by Pallium’s certified LEAP facilitators.
• In-person: Participants benefit from an immersive, 1- or 2-day face-to-face learning experience led by certified LEAP facilitators.

LEAP courses are offered in English and French to cater to the diverse linguistic needs of health care providers across Canada. To view a list of all LEAP courses offered in English, visit our English Palliative Care Courses page. For a complete list of courses available in French, visit out French Palliative Care Courses page.

Most LEAP courses are accredited with the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons and/or the College of Family Physicians of Canada. Accreditation details for each course varies and can be found on the specific course page you are interested in.

LEAP courses are developed and peer-reviewed by volunteer pan-Canadian teams of subject matter experts who are committed to promoting the palliative care approach.

We understand that schedules can be busy, and course availability may not always work for your schedule. If you don’t see a LEAP course currently scheduled or available at a convenient time for you, please let us know by filling our Expression of interest form. Your interest helps us plan future courses that better fit your needs, and you’ll be notified when new courses are scheduled.

We offer different enrollment methods for LEAP courses to accommodate our partner organizations’ needs. Some organizations have limitations due to funding on who can attend their courses. Due to this, they will provide enrollment keys to eligible participants. You are welcome to contact support if you are interested in any course that has an enrollment key, and we can clarify if you fit the eligibility criteria for that course.

Pallium’s Learning Essential Approaches to Palliative Care (LEAP) courses and its Canadian Serious Illness Conversations (CSIC) courses are taught by a dedicated group of palliative care instructors, clinicians and educators from across Canada. From major cities to rural towns, Pallium’s certified facilitators bring a wealth of experience, knowledge, and passion to teach palliative care training and advocate for better palliative care in their communities.

To become a LEAP facilitator, applicants must:

1. Have completed a LEAP course.
2. Be a registered health care professional. Most facilitators are physicians, nurse practitioners, or registered nurses.*
   • While the majority of our facilitators are one of the professions listed above, as our courses are interprofessional, LEAP facilitators also include other health care professions such as:
     • Social workers with a bachelor or higher in social work from an accredited university (or equivalent).
     • Paramedics (Licensed Advanced Care Paramedic in provincial jurisdiction)
     • Spiritual Care Practitioner (Certified member of the Canadian Association of Spiritual Care)
     • Other registered and inter-disciplinary health care professionals with experience in palliative care.
3. Have at least 2 years of full-time clinical palliative care experience
4. Have at least 2 years of experience educating professionals (academic, continuing education, advanced certification, community, or institutional teaching).

Learn more about becoming a LEAP facilitator.

To become a Canadian Serious Illness Conversations course facilitator, applicants must:

1. Have completed Pallium’s Canadian Serious Illness Conversations Course.
2. Have at least 6 months of experience using the Serious Illness Conversations Guide in your practice.
3. Must be a registered health care professional.
4. Must have experience providing care to individuals with life-limiting illnesses,.

Learn more about becoming a CSIC facilitator.

If you’re ready to make a difference in palliative care and meet the qualifications, experience, and prerequisites, submit your application to begin your application process and join us in advancing palliative care.

Yes, your organization can host LEAP courses to equip your team with essential palliative care skills. Hosting a LEAP course offers you the flexibility to tailor the date, time, location, and delivery model to fit your organization’s specific needs.

For more details, visit our Host a Course page.

Pallium Canada offers flexible LEAP licensing solutions to support your organization’s palliative care education needs. With a commitment to flexibility, support, and cost certainty, our licensing options offer a turnkey approach tailored to meet the unique needs of each partner.

For more information, visit our LEAP licensing page.

Pallium Canada offers a variety of free palliative care resources for health care professionals. We offer educational resources to build your learning journey, practical clinical tools, strategies for quality improvement, and opportunities to engage with communities of practice.

Explore our resources here.

The Palliative Care ECHO Project is a national initiative to cultivate communities of practice and establish continuous professional development among health care providers across Canada who care for patients with life-limiting illness.

The Project offers free online programs that bring together health care providers from across Canada with shared interests to foster continued knowledge exchange through interactive, case-based learning.

For more information, visit the Palliative Care ECHO Project website.

Pallium Canada offers a variety of resources for community members, caregivers, and organizations. Our free resources are designed to help communities, individuals and workplaces create more supportive environments in their communities for patients, caregivers and their families experiencing serious illness, dying and grieving.

Explore our community resources.

The Pallium Palliative Pocketbook is a practical, peer-reviewed, and fully referenced one-stop resource that supports safe, ethical, effective and accountable palliative clinical service. Its compact size and easily accessible information make it ideal for non-specialist physicians, nurses, pharmacists, social workers, and medical students.

The Pallium Palliative Pocketbook is available in hardcopy or as an eBook and can be purchased on our website.

Learner Refund and Transfer Policy

A “learner” is defined as an individual who has registered for any Learning Essential Approaches to Palliative Care (LEAP) course, Canadian Serious Illness Conversations (CSIC) course, or other course offered by Pallium Canada, either through self-enrolment or via bulk registration by Pallium Canada at the request of a Partner.

Refund policy:

Pallium Canada does not offer refunds.

All learners must successfully complete all required coursework and activities to receive a certificate, including full attendance of any facilitated workshops whether online or in-person. All learners registered in a course that includes a facilitated workshop must complete the required pre-course work in advance of the facilitated workshop. Failure to do so will result in the learner’s removal from the workshop and non-completion of the course. No refunds or extensions will be granted for non-completion.

Transfer policy:

Pallium will make all reasonable efforts to accommodate unforeseen emergencies and, when possible, will transfer a learner to an alternate date for the facilitated workshop portion of the course. All transfer requests will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Requests must be made prior to the start of the facilitated workshop.

Transfers are not guaranteed and, if approved, will be subject to a $100 fee (plus applicable taxes).

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