Peer education programme for end of life education among older people
Project Team
- Jane Seymour, University of Nottingham
- Sheila Kennedy, University of Nottingham
- Kathryn Almack, University of Nottingham
- Brian Crosbie, University of Nottingham
- Amanda Clarke, Sheffield Hallam University
- Caroline Sanders, University of Manchester
- Katherine Froggatt, Lancaster University
- Merryn Gott, University of Sheffield
- Maddie Welton, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (representing the Peer Education Project Group)
Funder: The Burdett Trust for Nursing
Timescale: April 2007 – May 2009
Aims
To refine and extend a peer education programme for advance end of life care planning and assess its appropriateness, impact and transferability for older adults, their family carers/next of kin and care staff in a range of care contexts and community groups.
Objectives
- To work with older people, their family carers/next of kin, care staff and nurses from a range of community groups and care settings to evaluate an existing information resource for advance end of life care planning.
- To assess the needs of older people, their family carers and care staff from a range of community groups and care settings (n=up to 16) for new materials addressing their concerns about advance end of life care planning.
- To involve older people, their family carers and care staff from a range of community groups and care settings in the production and assessment of new end of life education materials.
- To assess the feasibility and acceptability of the refined training programme to volunteer peer educators (n = up to 32).
- To assist peer educators in running peer education sessions within their communities and to assess the acceptability of these to discussants.
- To gain insights into the processes of engaging and working with older adults and those that care for them in a sensitive area of practice development and research.
The research team have been working with six older people’s community/self help groups, spread over a geographically wide area across England. Groups include: pensioners’ action groups; bereavement support groups; Cross Roads Care; carer support groups; lesbian, bisexual and gay older people; senior learners. We have also worked with residents and staff from care homes/extra care housing organisations, and qualified nurses in the Trent and Derby/Burton Cancer Networks. We are collaborating with Help the Aged and the National End of Life Care Programme to produce new educational resources based on the project’s findings which will be nationally available. We will also produce a project website over the coming months We ran a training programme for 30 volunteer peer educators in November 08. We aim to complete this project by the end of April 09.
Related publications
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Evaluating a peer education programme for advance end-of-life care planning for older adults: The peer educators’ perspective, Clarke A, Sanders C, Seymour JE, Gott M and Welton M (in press); International Journal of Disability and Human Development.
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Opening the door for older people to explore end of life issues, Clarke, A, Seymour JE et al (2006); London: Help the Aged.
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Development of a peer education programme for advance end of life care planning. Sanders, C., Seymour, J., Clarke, A., Gott, M and Welton, M. (2006); International Journal of Palliative Nursing, 12(5): 214-223.
The Sue Ryder Care Centre for Palliative and End of Life Studies, Nottingham University
- Peer education programme for end of life education among older people
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This project, which is funded by the Burdett Trust for Nursing between April 2007 and March 2009, works with users to address health education issues in end-of-life care from their perspective.
(Sue Ryder Care Centre for Palliative Care and End of Life Studies, Nottingham University)
