Kindred Cares Grant Recipients
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In 2021, Kindred Foundation opened its first Kindred Cares grant competition for residential hospice and pediatric palliative care programs, projects, and research in Ontario. Each application was reviewed by a committee of experts. Kindred Foundation funded the following initiatives:
2023 Kindred Cares Grant Recipients
In 2023, we had 22 applications to the Kindred Cares grant and 10 requests were funded.
Canuck Place - The Enhanced Community Care program offers out-patient care to children and families at Canuck Place through a 24/7 nursing line, video and telehealth consultations, coordination between services, and visits by their clinical team to a child’s home or community hospital. This program ensures that each family, anywhere in BC or Yukon, receives expert medical care for their child, and support for the whole family.
Darling Home for Kids - Provides professional, holistic, high-quality, and personalized respite, residential, and hospice palliative care to children with medical complexities. Their Hospice Palliative Program supports children and families across the entire continuum, from the time a child is diagnosed through to end-of-life care, to ensure every child is given the chance to be supported.
Emily's House - The Emily’s House at Home program offers care for children with complex care needs in their own homes, in person, in transition, in hospice, in virtual groups, and in accessible community spaces - accessible wherever a child may be located.
Heart of Hastings Hospice - Their Lending Equipment program provides the community with free access to medical and mobility equipment including nutritional and personal product support when available. The Heart of Hastings Hospice will also connect and collaborate with Meals on Wheels, offering meals to local caregivers caring for those with a life-limiting illness.
Hospice Northwest - Their HUUG Program (Help Us Understand Grief) helps children process their grief after a loved one has died. They will develop a new family workshop series as an addition to this program, focusing on anticipatory grief. By providing support as they transition in their grief journey, children will learn how to integrate their grief into their lives in a healthy way.
McMaster Children's Hospital, Quality of Life and Advanced Care - The Perinatal Palliative Care stream supports families whose baby is diagnosed with a serious health condition during pregnancy or shortly after birth. For those families whose child is unlikely to survive pregnancy and birth, and who will not have the time or opportunity for memory-making with their child, support is provided by funding antenatal 3D-ultrasounds. This is an extraordinary opportunity to create memories and long-lasting legacy items.
Montreal Children's Hospital - The design of a program to train senior pediatrics residents as facilitators in how to conduct conversations about serious illness with patients and families. This training program will be co-designed by parents with lived experience who care for a child with a serious illness. The goal is to improve communication skills and ultimately create a training program that can be shared nationally. This project will have a wide reach: with resident learners, clinicians, and ultimately, patients with serious illnesses and their families.
Oak Ridges Hospice - A community-based hospice organization that provides compassionate care and support out of the Morgan & Sidhu House. They aim to provide more meaningful end-of-life and grief support services for residents and their families. Oak Ridges Hospice will do this by increasing opportunities for legacy work, music therapy experiences, and post-loss workshops.
Roger Neilson House - To expand their grief services, a temporary consultant will prepare for the successful implementation of a new Grief Services Coordinator role. Roger Neilson House is committed to supporting children and families throughout their palliative care journey.
SickKids/University of Toronto, Bloomberg Nursing - Dr. Kimberley Widger will be conducting a study to describe access and delivery of specialized pediatric palliative care across Canada in 2022. The research will build upon and compare to the research on this topic that was completed in 2002 and 2012. This aims to generate awareness about children’s timely access to specialized pediatric palliative services across Canada as well as successes and potential ongoing gaps in delivery over the last 20 years.
In addition to these grants, donations were also made to Hospice Peterborough, Huron Shores Hospice, and Journey Home Hospice this year. Kindred Foundation supported 13 different hospices and palliative care programs – a total of $99,550 donated in 2023.
2022 Kindred Cares Grant Recipients
Canuck Place - Offering 24/7 out-patient care to children & families at Canuck Place through a nursing line, video consultations, or home visits throughout B.C.
Hospice Northwest - Creating a culturally sensitive, relevant, and responsive bereavement program for Indigenous youth in Thunder Bay.
Hospice Wellington - Combining art therapy and legacy work to support reflection, emotion, and reconciliation for residents or families.
Nipissing Serenity - Construction of a safe and accessible outdoor space for programming. The gazebo enables residents and their loved ones the ability to go outside together.
Rotary Flames - Funding will provide additional recreational therapy opportunities for children with life-limiting conditions by adding to their recreational therapist team and making services more readily accessible.
2021 Kindred Cares Grant Recipients
Darling Home for Kids - Operational funding for supporting children and families accessing hospice palliative care services.
Emily's House - Funding for "Emily's House at Home", a pilot program to help with providing hospice care in hospital, at home, in transition, virtually, and at Emily's House to ensure that families are supported no matter where they are.
Hospice Peterborough - Funding for a supportive care counselor to provide grief support to families.
Hospice of Waterloo Region - Programming for bereaved children and teens to process grief through art and music.
Hospice Wellington - Support for the Art and Narrative Therapy research project utilizing art and storytelling to gain insight and personal perspectives through grief, working towards increased resiliency.
Hospital for Sick Children Pediatric Advanced Care Team (PACT) - Identifying the key components of family meetings for children with serious illness from the perspective of caregivers.
Hospital for Sick Children Child Life - Using social virtual environments and virtual reality for adolescents to connect and interact with others when in hospital or at home through personalized avatars.
Nipissing Serenity Hospice - Expansion of the grief, bereavement and wellness program to provide comprehensive spiritual psychosocial and emotional care to caregivers, families and residents.