Kids Path, which was founded by Hospice and Palliative Care of Greensboro,is a model of care for seriously ill and grieving children.  Through a generous grant from The Duke Endowment, the model has been expanded through the establishment of a consortium of licensed Kids Path providers throughout the Carolinas.

 

The initial consortium members are based in the following North and South Carolina cities: Asheboro, Asheville, Burlington, Charleston, Charlotte, Greensboro, High Point, Lincolnton and Wilmington.  Collectively, these programs will serve children in 30 counties, providing consistent pediatric and palliative care through a uniformly recognizable program identity - Kids Path.

What is Kids Path?

 

Kids Path is a unique program for children and families offered by hospices in the following North and South Carolina cities: Asheboro, Asheville, Burlington, Charleston, Charlotte, Greensboro, High point, and Wilmington.  Collectively, these program reach families in 30 counties in the Carolinas. 

 

Kids Path services include care for children with progressive, potentially life-threatening illnesses from the time of diagnosis through the course of the illness.  Kids Path providers also offer counseling support for grieving children and youth. 

 

An in-depth report published by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in July, 2002, entitled “When Children Die: Improving Palliative and End-of-Life Care for Children and Their Families,” found that the American health care system is poorly prepared to offer palliative care to the more than 53,000 chronically ill children and infants who die every year.   Of these, just one in ten will receive palliative care, an approach to death and dying that includes appropriate pain management, as well as treatment of a disease. It embraces the patient as a whole -- body, mind and spirit. Palliative care also addresses the social and emotional needs of the patient and his or her family.

 

Findings of the IOM study also revealed that the many families who seek care from major pediatric medical centers often feel uneasy returning to their home communities.  Their anxieties are heightened by the need to use multiple agencies, thus creating a very fragmented plan of care and support. 

 

The Kids Path model of care addresses this fragmentation by providing nurses, social workers, and couselors to coordinate care and support to families with seriously ill children. Services offered by Kids Path providers include home care for children, birth to 18 years of age, who have been diagnosed with a progressive, potentially life-threatening illness.  Kids Path can offer support at the time of a devastating diagnosis, provide care coordination during treatment, and discharge during remission or, if required, sensitively provide end-of-life care and support.  In addition, age-appropriate counseling support is available for children and youth grieving from a loss or coping with a family illness.