Palliative Approaches

Resource Guide Launch: "Palliative Care Is… A collective response to death, dying, and grief"
2023-06-01 | Online
The ePAC Action Team, consisting of inner city workers, researchers, and palliative care practitioners, has been working together for over five years to improve access to quality care for people facing serious illness and the life-limiting conditions of homelessness, poverty, racism, criminalization, and stigma in Victoria, BC (Lekwungen and W̱SÁNEĆ territories).
Now the group is launching a Resource Guide called, Palliative Care Is… A collective response to death, dying, and grief in the inner city, rooted in workers’ knowledge and experiences, and containing insights developed from research, actions, and our ongoing collaborations.
The 7 chapter, 90-page Guide adapts a palliative approach to care for the settings where people are living and dying in contexts of inequity. Its target audience are workers – in housing, shelters, drop-ins, and on the streets – who are providing care, and filling gaps in health and palliative care services. Rather than being prescriptive of what workers should do, the Guide recognizes the work that is already happening in these settings to meet the care needs of people who are ignored, dismissed, and unable to reach mainstream health services. health services.
To learn more about the development of this guide read our blog click here. To download the pdf or access our interactive online ebook of the guide click here.

Employment and family caregiving in palliative care
2023-06-07 13:30 - 14:30 (America/Vancouver) | Zoom
Join Dr. Clare Gardiner in a talk exploring some of the financial impacts of end of life caregiving, in particular focusing on employment and the challenges of providing informal care to someone approaching the end of life whilst remaining in paid work. The role of government policy and employment legislation will also be considered, reflecting on international evidence including from the UK and Canada.

Dr. Clare Gardiner
Clare is Professor of Palliative Care at the Health Sciences School at The University of Sheffield, UK. She is particularly interested in research concerning economic aspects of palliative care, particularly the costs of family caregiving and impacts on employment.
Click here to download the event poster
UPDATE: A recording of the event is uploaded to our YouTube page, click here to watch.

CRC Talks: Autonomy, the Internet, and End-of-Life
2023-10-11 13:30 - 14:30 | Zoom
Join us for Dr. Kelli Stajduhar’s CRC Talks October 11, 2023 at 1:30-2:30pm PST! We are hosting Shaun Peter Qureshi, MD who will discuss: Autonomy, the Internet, and End-of-Life: How people facing death and bereavement resist the medicalisation of dying and grief through online forums.
Shaun Peter Qureshi, MD
Shaun Peter Qureshi MBChB, MD, MRCP(UK), MRCP Specialty Certificate Palliative Medicine is a Scottish palliative care physician, educator, and researcher. He is a research fellow at the Centre for the Art of Dying Well, St Mary’s University, London. As a UK Churchill Fellow, Shaun is working towards improved palliative care for marginalised patient groups in the UK through researching equitable models of palliative care for structurally vulnerable patients.
Click here to watch the Shaun’s presentation on YouTube!
When available, a recording of the event will be uploaded to our YouTube page. Stay tuned!
Support for these events provided by Dr. Stajduhar and the Canada Research Chairs Program, the UVic Institute on Aging & Lifelong Health and School of Nursing. For more info, please email: palliative_approaches@uvic.ca

Kelli Stajduhar named visiting Hood Fellow by the Te Ārai Research Group
2023-11-15 - 2023-11-22
Professor Kelli Stajduhar has been named as a 2024 Hood Fellow by the University of Auckland. Nominated by the Te Ārai Research Group, she will visit New Zealand next autumn. While there, she will give a public lecture at the university open to the public, hold seminars with School of Nursing staff and liaise with organisations working in the homelessness and palliative care sector.
The Hood Fellowship’s aim in funding visiting scholars is to ‘enhance the interaction between University staff and leading international talent.’ They were established to honour former Vice-Chancellor Sir John Hood.
Read the full story here.

CRC Talks: Peer advisors promote cancer prevention and early detection - Experiences from Sweden
2023-11-22 12:00 - 13:00 | Zoom
Join us for Dr. Kelli Stajduhar’s CRC Talks November 22, 12-1pm PST! We are hosting Max Kleijberg, PhD who will discuss: Peer advisors promote cancer prevention and early detection — Experiences from Sweden.
Max Klijberg, PhD
Max Klijberg, PhD is a designer and postdoctoral researcher at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. His research takes a transdisciplinary approach to health equity, aging, severe illness, and the end of life. Through participatory action research he partners with stakeholders to collaboratively develop knowledge and create meaningful change.
Click here to access the YouTube recording!
When available, a recording of the event will be uploaded to our YouTube page. Stay tuned!
Support for these events provided by Dr. Stajduhar and the Canada Research Chairs Program, the UVic Institute on Aging & Lifelong Health and School of Nursing. For more info, please email: palliative_approaches@uvic.ca

Zining! As an Arts-Based Research Method
2024-01-25 13:30 - 14:30 | Zoom
Join us for Dr. Kelli Stajduhar’s CRC Talks January 25, 2024 1:30-2:30pm PST! We are hosting Piotr Burek and Alexandra Stewart who will discuss: Zining! as an Arts-Based Research Method.
As part of an ongoing Participatory Action Research project conducted by Dr. Kelli Stajduhar through the Integrating Palliative Approaches to Care in the Inner-City study at the University of Victoria, Piotr Burek and Lexy Stewart conducted a zine-making workshop to explore what palliative care means to inner-city workers in the context of extreme injustice and persistent death. In this presentation we explore the potential of zine-making as a method to discover and co-produce unique knowledge in public health palliative care research.
Click here to access the YouTube recording.
Piotr Burek (he/him) is a Master of Arts student in the Social Dimensions of Health program at the University of Victoria, Canada. His research focuses on the practices of care of harm reduction workers, including those with lived and living experience of drug use, in response to the ongoing overdose crisis in Canada.
Alexandra Stewart (she/her) is a Master of Arts student in the Social Dimensions of Health program at the University of Victoria and a research assistant at the Institute on Aging & Lifelong Health. Her research focuses on incorporating palliative approaches to care for populations experiencing homelessness and structural vulnerability.
Support for these events provided by Dr. Stajduhar and the Canada Research Chairs Program, the UVic Institute on Aging & Lifelong Health and School of Nursing. For more info, please email: palliative_approaches@uvic.ca

Kelli Stajduhar featured on new episode of Radical Nurse Talk!
2024-01-31 - 2024-02-14 | Online
Professor Kelli Stajduhar featured on the latest episode of Radical Nurse Talk! Check out the episode here.

Home care nurses work: What is coordinating the work of nurses in home care?
2024-05-21 09:30 - 10:30 | Zoom
Join us for Dr. Kelli Stajduhar’s CRC Talks May 21, 2024, 9:30-10:30 PDT! We are hosting Tanya Sanders RN PhD who will discuss her research on home care nurses work.
Description: The need for home care is growing, but little is known about the day-to-day nursing tasks and the institutional factors that impact this work. As part of a broader Canadian study on home care systems, I conducted an institutional ethnography with home care nurses in a Western Canadian health authority. The study revealed that nurses’ work is managed through texts and electronic health documentation systems. Factors such as efficiency demands, doing more with less, task shifting, market-driven principles, and externally defined, narrow safety measures were identified in their daily work. Nurses increasingly spend more time coordinating work and client care, leaving less time for direct interaction with clients. In her presentation, Tanya will discuss these findings and invite discussion on how these insights
might drive change.
Tanya Sanders RN PhD
Tanya is a faculty member at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops. She has a keen interest in community health nursing and educating nurses for future practice. Tanya believes that the challenge ahead for nurses is defining and taking hold of our future practice, leading and directing how the role(s) of registered nurses will contribute to health and the nursing profession.
Check out the recording on our YouTube channel! Link
Support for these events provided by Dr. Stajduhar and the Canada Research Chairs Program, the UVic Institute on Aging & Lifelong Health and School of Nursing. For more info, please email: palliative_approaches@uvic.ca

Indigenous Graduate Student Opportunity
2025-03-01
Our CIHR-Funded research project, “Supporting Vulnerable and Older Adults to be Cared for and to Die at ‘Home’”, is looking to do research better with direction provided by our Urban Indigenous Guidance Circle (UIGC). We are currently looking to recruit one or two Indigenous Graduate Students who might be looking for a unique opportunity to take part as a member of our UIGC for a minimum one-year term. A stipend of $5,000 per year will be provided to the successful applicant. Applications are due by March 1, 2025, and can be emailed to the project coordinator, Ami Bitschy, @ amice@uvic.ca. For more information around how to apply to this opportunity, the UIGC, or our research project – please read Call for Expressions of Interest document HERE

What next? Relationship-centred approaches for healthcare system redesign to meet the palliative care needs of people living with severe mental illness
2025-05-08 12:00 - 13:00 | Zoom
Join us for Dr. Kelli Stajduhar’s CRC Talks May 8, 12-1pm PST! We are hosting Sarah Yardley, PhD who will discuss: What next? Relationship-centred approaches for healthcare system redesign to meet the palliative care needs of people living with severe mental illness.
Sarah Yardley, PhD, Associate Professor of Palliative Medicine, University College London, UK.
Sarah researches relationship-centred practices in healthcare systems to reduce rhetoric vs. reality, policy vs. practice, expectations vs. experiences gaps. Her Churchill Fellowship seeks to improve care for people living with Serious Mental Illness (SMI) who need Palliative Care for advanced incurable physical illness.
When available, a recording of the event will be uploaded to our YouTube page. Stay tuned!
Support for these events provided by Dr. Stajduhar and the Canada Research Chairs Program, the UVic Institute on Aging & Lifelong Health and School of Nursing. For more info, please email: palliative_approaches@uvic.ca

Mana Motuhake: Indigenous Families’ Aspirations and Experiences of Assisted Dying in Aotearoa New Zealand
2026-04-15 12:00 - 13:00 | Zoom
Join us for Dr. Kelli Stajduhar’s CRC Talks April 15, 12-1pm PDT! We are hosting Dr. Tess Moeke-Maxwell for a talk titled, Mana Motuhake: Indigenous Families’ Aspirations and Experiences of Assisted Dying in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Register here: https://uvic.zoom.us/meeting/register/dVnzRK0oSzSzUtte9rEehw
Dr Tess Moeke-Maxwell, PhD (Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki; Ngāti Porou) is a Senior Research Fellow, School of Nursing, University of Auckland and Co-Director Te Ārai Palliative Care and End of Life Research Group. Tess Moeke-Maxwell is a descendant of Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki and Ngāti Porou. She is a Senior Research Fellow and co-director of the Te Ārai Palliative Care and End of Life Research Group at the School of Nursing, University of Auckland. Tess leads Kaupapa Māori “lived Indigenous experience” qualitative research on behalf of Te Ārai’s Kāhui advisory group. Improving end-of-life, palliative care and assisted dying experiences for Māori whānau (family, including extended family) are her research interests. Currently, she leads the Health Research Council funded ‘Waerea study’ on Māori whānau experiences using Assisted Dying services. Tess is an advisory member of the National Palliative Care Work Programme for Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand. In 2022, the Royal Society of NZ awarded Tess and Te Ārai Kāhui the NZ Health Research Council’s Te Tohu Rapuora Medal for research excellence with Māori communities. She was selected as one of New Zealand’s 100 Māori Leaders as part of the Henry Rongomau Bennett Foundation Leadership Strategy based on her contributions to Indigenous end-of-life care research.
Support for these events provided by Dr. Stajduhar and the Canada Research Chairs Program, the UVic Institute on Aging & Lifelong Health and School of Nursing; Island Health; and Victoria Hospice. For more info, please email: palliative_approaches@uvic.ca
