Evaluation of service user-led workshops in children's palliative care education

Children's nurses report feeling unprepared when caring for children with life-limiting conditions and their families, while the value of including service users in the provision of nursing education is increasingly recognised. This small-scale service evaluation examined the effect on learning of service user-led workshops as part of a module for final-year children's nursing students and post-registration children's nurses. The workshops focused on the experience of children's palliative care and child bereavement from the parents' perspective. Findings from evaluation data indicated high levels of satisfaction with the workshops and identified three themes: safe space, shift in perspective and enhancing practice. A model of service user facilitated learning describes how these themes can enable learning about children's palliative care. This evaluation suggests that the involvement of service users as partners in healthcare education can be transformative, enabling children's nursing students to examine their own perspectives and consider ways to enhance their future practice.