The second blog in this series reflects on the learning and ‘moving forward’ after this conference, teasing out the what next?
Before we get to the serious learning, Lyn Gould shared some cultural learnings they experienced: We had fun learning about the rich history and culture sightseeing in the Forbidden City and Temple of Heaven, browsing the shops in the hutongs, adventures (for some of us) eating frog and seeing insects wiggling on sticks prior to barbequing.”
Resolutions following the conference included
- Developing new models of care (something Butterfly Children’s Hospices is taking on and starting to work towards). Keep an eye on our website and social media pages for updates about this.
- Paying more attention to spiritual and emotional needs
- Developing children’s palliative care policy and integrating it into health and social care
- Starting research to determine scale and type of need
This is a time of change, a time of progression and we are really excited for the future of children’s palliative care and how Butterfly Children’s Hospices can continue to drive things forward. As always, our focus is on the children and how we can make things better for them, in life and death.
It will be interesting to see how these resolutions get translated from words to action – when China decides to do something it happens NOW. Our role is to advise, support, encourage, educate and lead on development of new models appropriate to China.
My fear is that in all the hype of hospital service improvements and showing the world how fast a country can modernise, the focus will still not be on the need of those hidden, voiceless children, already suffering alone in orphanages.
Lyn would like to extend her grateful thanks to a number of people including our super team lead by Naomi Fu at Butterfly in China, who worked long, hard hours to organise the detail of the conference and support our foreign guests. The amazing Aussie team, Paul Quilliam, Helen Wilson, Kelly Oldham, Maggie Leung and Dr Anthony Herbert. Also a huge thank you to Professor Julia Downing – CEO of the International Children’s Palliative Care Network (ICPCN) who gave her time in spite of being embroiled in preparations for the ICPCN international conference being held a month later. We will share more information about the ICPCN on our blog later this Summer.
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