Do you remember why we started the Children’s Hospice and Palliative Care Coalition?

Today, we are asking you to support our continued efforts on behalf of seriously ill children and their families by becoming an official member of CHPCC.

Become a member. Together, we can make a difference.

You will receive a membership card and certificate along with these and other benefits

Membership Benefits include:

• Participating in our annual legislative day at the state capitol
• Timely updates from Sacramento about children’s healthcare issues
• Networking through quarterly conference calls on topics related to innovations within pediatric palliative care
• Notices about job opportunities in children’s healthcare and hospice
• Access to feedback from our Partnership for Parents Advisory Council
• Discounted registration fees for selected CHPCC programs, events, and materials
• Password protected online educational training through BES
• Web acknowledgement of your membership through childrenshospice.org

And, with your help, CHPCC succeeded! Our accomplishments include:

➢ Enactment and implementation of the Nick Snow Children’s Hospice & Palliative Care Act of 2006.

➢ Development of the new Children’s Hospice and Palliative Care Benefit in collaboration with California’s Department of HealthCare Services, to increase hospice and palliative services for an estimated 17,000 of California’s children.

➢ Launch of the award-winning Partnership for Children, a community-based care coordination program recently institutionalized as a Department of Healthcare Services endorsed model in California.

➢ Development and launch of the Benefit Education Support and Training in Pediatrics program, or BEST in Pediatrics. a statewide educational initiative designed to ensure maximum utilization of California’s new Pediatric Palliative Care Benefit.

➢ Created the first and only bilingual web resource addressing the unique needs of parents caring for a seriously ill child. (www.partnershipforparents.org).

➢ Established a Family Advisory Council with an expertise in palliative care to support and advise CHPCC’s advocacy efforts.

Click here to become a member now.

Angel, our inspiration

Diagnosed at age 12 with osteosarcoma, an aggressive bone cancer, Angel, an avid soccer player, went from spending his days on the field to a hospital bed. After several months of treatment, Angel’s doctors, explaining that there was nothing else to be done, sent the distraught family home—a community 70 miles from the nearest children’s hospital. Given that they had no car or home care, Angel’s parents were told to call 911 and to go to the local hospital if his pain became too intense.

At home, Angel’s condition worsened rapidly, but his doctor was unable to refer him to hospice since his family didn’t want to give up hope that a clinical trial might cure his disease. Three days later, Angel was rushed to the local hospital’s crowded emergency room. The staff was unfamiliar with Angel’s treatment protocols and unsure of how to proceed. Hours passed. Angel’s mother begged the staff to do something, anything to help. A decision was made to take Angel upstairs to a hospital room. But on the way—gripping his mother’s hand and in pain—Angel died. His father and siblings sat downstairs in the lobby, unaware and unable to say goodbye. Even now years later, his parents struggle to find peace, haunted by the memory of their oldest son’s final moments in life.

In 2001, we founded the Children’s Hospice and Palliative Care Coalition (CHPCC) because we discovered that there were thousands of devastating stories like Angel’s—stories that broke our hearts and fueled our ambition. We reached out to you, and you listened. Together, we undertook the mantle of change and vowed to speak loudly and clearly on behalf of children who are too little and too sick to speak for themselves.