When a child is facing a serious illness, families often need more than medical treatment alone. They need guidance, comfort, communication, and a care team that understands how deeply illness affects the whole family.
Pediatric palliative care provides an added layer of support for children with serious illness and their loved ones. Through Transitions Kids, Transitions LifeCare helps families navigate complex care needs while focusing on comfort, quality of life, and what matters most to each child and family.
What Is Pediatric Palliative Care?
Pediatric palliative care is specialized support for children with serious illness. It can begin at any stage of illness and can be provided alongside curative treatments.
This means families do not have to choose between treatment and comfort-focused support. The Transitions Kids team works alongside a child’s current doctors, specialists, hospitals, clinics, and private duty nursing teams to help improve communication, manage symptoms, and support the family’s goals of care.
Pediatric palliative care may help with:
- Symptom management
- Care coordination
- Communication between providers
- Emotional and spiritual support
- Family decision-making
- Support for quality of life
- Guidance during changes in a child’s condition
Care That Works Alongside Your Child’s Medical Team
One of the most important things for families to know is that Transitions Kids does not replace a child’s existing care team. Instead, the team works alongside doctors, hospitals, specialty clinics, and other providers to offer extra support.
For families managing appointments, medications, symptoms, specialists, and changing care needs, this kind of coordination can make a difficult situation feel less overwhelming. The goal is to help everyone involved in the child’s care stay connected and focused on the child’s comfort, needs, and quality of life.
Support at Any Stage of Serious Illness
A referral to Transitions Kids does not automatically mean a child is at end of life. Pediatric palliative care is available for children at many stages of serious illness, and some families receive support for extended periods of time as their child’s needs change.
Transitions Kids supports children from the perinatal period through age 18, including children with potentially life-threatening diagnoses before birth, during childhood, and through adolescence.
Depending on the family’s needs, support may include periodic check-in calls, monthly visits, ongoing symptom management, care coordination, or a higher level of support through pediatric hospice care when appropriate.
The Difference Between Pediatric Palliative Care and Pediatric Hospice Care
The Difference Between Pediatric Palliative Care and Pediatric Hospice CarePediatric palliative care and pediatric hospice care both focus on comfort, support, and quality of life, but they are not exactly the same.
Pediatric palliative care can begin at any stage of serious illness. It can be provided while a child continues treatments aimed at curing or managing the illness.
Pediatric hospice care provides compassionate, family-centered support when a child is in the last six months of life. Hospice care focuses on comfort, symptom management, emotional support, spiritual care, and surrounding the child and family with care during an incredibly difficult time.
For children, curative treatment and hospice care may be able to continue together. The Transitions Kids team helps families understand their options and works with insurance providers to help ensure services are not interrupted.
24/7 Guidance for Families
Serious illness does not follow a schedule. Questions and concerns can come up at night, on weekends, or during sudden changes in a child’s condition.
Transitions Kids families have access to pediatric support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A nurse is available by phone or video to help with questions about symptoms, medications, changes in condition, or what to do next. For children receiving hospice services, nurse visits are available 24/7.
That around-the-clock access can help families feel less alone and more supported when they need guidance most.
Where Pediatric Palliative Care Is Provided
Most children receive care at home, where they are surrounded by familiar people, routines, and comforts. When a child is hospitalized, the Transitions Kids team can continue supporting the patient and family, even if they are not providing direct medical care in the hospital.
For children receiving hospice care, Transitions LifeCare’s Hospice Home may also be an option for end-of-life care when home or hospital is not the best fit.
Transitions Kids provides direct care and support services in Chatham, Durham, Franklin, Granville, Harnett, Johnston, Orange, and Wake counties. For families outside the direct service area, some palliative care and bereavement support may be available through telehealth.
Who Is on the Transitions Kids Care Team?
Transitions Kids uses an interdisciplinary team approach, meaning different types of professionals work together to support the medical, emotional, spiritual, and practical needs of each child and family.
The care team may include:
- Physicians
- Nurses
- Nurse aides
- Social workers
- Spiritual care counselors
- Trained volunteers
Together, the team helps create a care plan centered on the child’s condition, the family’s needs, and the goals that matter most.
Support for the Whole Family
When a child is seriously ill, the entire family is affected. Parents and caregivers may be managing complex care responsibilities, making difficult decisions, supporting siblings, and trying to process their own emotions at the same time.
Transitions Kids is designed to support both the child and their loved ones. That support may include emotional care, spiritual care, practical guidance, and bereavement support for families after the death of a child.
Bereavement services are provided indefinitely, giving families continued support beyond the child’s medical care.
Getting Started With Transitions Kids
Families can begin by calling Transitions LifeCare, reaching out online, or asking their child’s physician about a referral. From there, the team listens to the family’s concerns, learns about the child’s diagnosis and current care plan, and helps determine what level of support may be most appropriate.
The process is designed to be clear, gentle, and centered on the family’s needs.
Getting started may include:
- Calling Transitions LifeCare or speaking with your child’s doctor
- Sharing your child’s diagnosis, symptoms, and current care plan
- Talking through your family’s needs, questions, and goals
- Coordinating with your child’s providers
- Creating a support plan focused on comfort, communication, and quality of life
Extra Support When Families Need It Most
Pediatric palliative care gives families an added layer of support during one of the most difficult experiences they may ever face. With guidance from Transitions Kids, families do not have to navigate serious illness alone.
Whether a child needs symptom support, care coordination, emotional guidance, or hospice care, the Transitions Kids team works to provide compassionate, family-centered care that honors each child’s needs, wishes, and quality of life.
