Redkite is a national charity providing essential support to children with cancer and their families, from hospital to home. Cancer can impact on and disrupt all aspects of life both during and after treatment.

At different periods throughout their child’s cancer experience, some families experience high distress levels or unmet information or psychosocial needs, but may not actively seek support. These periods may be when their child moves from intensive cancer treatment to maintenance therapy; returns home from hospital; finishes treatment or sadly, the family face bereavement. Any resulting gaps in psychosocial support can impact negatively on their wellbeing and quality of life.

The Care Pathways Program

To fill these gaps, Redkite, in partnership with the Queensland Children’s Hospital, developed a Care Pathway Program that would support endorsed referrals to and thereby uptake of, Redkite’s Community Based Support (CBS) Program.

An endorsed referral is one that is encouraged and supported by the referring professional, who can describe the potential benefits and normalise service use.

The Care Pathways Program was launched in the Queensland Children’s Hospital in October 2013. The Program consist of a jointly-developed formal referral process and agreements about transition prompts; referral forms; the use of endorsement and communication after referral.

Until the introduction of the Program and the provision of supporting referral forms, there was no formal referral process (care pathway) from hospital-based social workers to Redkite’s community-based support team, to support proactive referrals.

Hospital-based social workers can now more readily refer families to Redkite to ensure that they have ongoing support in the community.