SickKids Cardiac Nurse Award for Excellence in Family Centred Nursing Care

Thanks to the help of SickKids Heart Centre nursing staff, we are very happy to announce the first award at SickKids in tribute to Sasha, The Sasha Bella Award for Excellence in Family Centred Care to be given to a Heart Centre nurse yearly.

We are very happy to help in any small way to inspire excellence in family-centred care practices especially in cases of multi-organ challenge, palliative care or multi-service care and we are gratified to see the creation of a multi-disciplinary and inter-professional committee for the award.

There are a number of criteria that can be used separately or in combination including the nurse's clinical excellence in support of family-centred care which is described as:

"nursing practice that demonstrates above average knowledge, skill and judgment in alleviating the impact of illness on the child and family or supporting the child and family during end-of life care. This includes facilitating family involvement in decision-making and direct care, assessments of family needs or stressors, identification of appropriate resources, culturally sensitive care, sensitivity to family communication, devising strategies to enhance family coping, and when needed, early integration of Palliative Care."

Many thanks to Cecilia St. George-Hyslop, Judith Wilson, Linda Fazari, Denise Ferreira, Karen Kinnear and Bonny Fleming-Carroll for helping push this through quickly for nursing week. Thanks to Dr Jennifer Russell for her support of this nurse award.