Students will build their knowledge and experience in the health care and social service fields with a two-semester post-graduate certificate. They will gain the skills and attitudes necessary to provide a range of support to help clients, specifically the aged and the terminally ill and their families, live as independently as possible through the provision of compassionate care where quality of life is the primary objective and symptom control is the basis for care.

Through hands-on learning and an interprofessional health care team approach, students will gain the skills required to provide supportive care to clients who are experiencing physical, cognitive, emotional and behavioural challenges: • Explore strategies for developing and maintaining therapeutic relationships with aged and palliative patients, thereby fostering their dignity, self-worth and independence. • Learn how to effectively communicate with aging and palliative patients as well as with health care team members. • Study how individuals cope with pain as well as appropriate measures for providing comfort and pain management to the terminally ill and their families within students' scope of practice. • Become familiar with ethical, legal and spiritual considerations with regard to the care of vulnerable populations, and develop an understanding of individual and multicultural approaches to aging, death, dying and grieving. • Apply theory and concepts as related to caring for vulnerable populations and palliative patients through a combination of a clinical practicum and immersive simulation.