The Palliative Care Handbook for Personal Support Workers and Care Aides

A quick, practical guide for learning and everyday care

Built for the realities of frontline care, the Palliative Care Handbook from Pallium Canada is a mobile-friendly digital resource for personal support workers and care aides. It delivers practical guidance for real world palliative care situations and is tailored to professional experience, region, and scope of practice, enabling confident, compassionate, person centred care.

The Handbook is designed for:

Students preparing for placement or early practice.
Frontline personal support workers or care aides seeking practical, point-of-care guidance.
Canadian colleges and career colleges offering personal support worker and equivalent training programs that want a modern, practical tool for learners.
Long-term care, home care, and community organizations looking to standardize practice and support staff confidence in palliative approaches.

Purchase Your Copy Today

Available editions

Every workplace and job title are a little different across Canada. To reflect common job titles and regional terminology, the Palliative Care Handbook is offered in four editions, each available for $49. The content is identical in every edition, so you can simply choose the title that best reflects your role.

The available editions include:

The Palliative Care Handbook for Personal Support Workers
The Palliative Care Handbook for Health Care Aides
The Palliative Care Handbook for Health Care Assistants
The Palliative Care Handbook for Continuing Care Assistants

Find the version that's right for you

Get a personalized recommendation on which edition is right for you. Whether you’re a student in training, a frontline worker, or purchasing on behalf of your organization, this selection tool will guide you to the edition that best matches your role and region.

Key features of the Handbook

Mobile friendly: Designed for easy and quick access on phones, tablets, or computers, anytime and anywhere.

Unique structure: Help learners quickly find the information they need – whether building a specific skill, responding to a challenging care moment, or understanding the broader care journey.

Promotes safe, person-centred care: Supports consistent and compassionate care across settings by helping support workers understand the person behind each task.

Integrated with LEAP: Included for all learners in LEAP Personal Support Worker and in the LEAP Home Care PSW stream.

Designed for accessibility: Written in plain language and aligned with best practices on accessibility.

Lifetime access: Access to the Handbook never expires, allowing learners and staff to refresh skills and revisit core concepts throughout their careers.

Ordering your Handbook

All four editions of the Palliative Care Handbook are available for individual purchase for $49 + tax each:

Organization orders

If you are interested in purchasing multiple copies for your organization, college, or team, please contact us to learn more about bulk ordering options.

Topics covered

Understanding a palliative care approach

Navigating the illness journey

Supporting people with serious illness

Recognizing and managing changes

Communicating with compassion

Providing comfort

Collaborating with health care teams

Supporting families and care partners

End-of-life care and bereavement

Advance Care Planning and Goals of Care

Self-care and professional well-being

Inclusive and supportive language

Structure of the Handbook

The Handbook uses an innovative, learner-centred structure that connects foundational knowledge with real-world situations, so users understand what to do, why it matters, and how to apply it across different settings.

The content is organized into three integrated learning pathways:

Care Skill

Designed for new and experienced support workers, this section covers the core professional practice areas used every day. Care Skills provide guidance on safe, respectful, and compassionate care. Each skill explains what the practice involves, how it is applied, and why it matters for the care recipient and their family.

Within each Care Skill, users will find:

What the skill is
How to apply the skill with care
When to seek assistance
How the skill benefits the care recipient and family
Opportunities to practice and reinforce the skill

Care Journey

This section follows the person’s changing needs from serious illness through end-of-life and into bereavement. The Care Journeys provide the broader context of the care trajectory, helping support workers understand the evolving role and responsibilities at each stage.

This section helps users understand:

What’s happening for the care recipient
What families and care partners may feel
What the role of the support worker looks like throughout the journey.

Care Moments

Care Moments provides practical, point-of-care guidance for real-world situations. Each moment is divided into specific scenarios to help support workers anticipate changes, understand the care trajectory, and respond appropriately. This section is ideal for quick reference during daily care or clinical placement.

Each situation includes:

Notice: What to look for
Understand: Why it matters and what is happening
Act: Steps they can take in their role
Support: How to help the care recipient or family
Report: What to communicate to the health care team

Access the complete Table of Contents to review how the Handbook is organized for learning and everyday practice.

Funding

With heartfelt thanks, Pallium Canada acknowledges the Y.P. Heung Foundation for its generous contribution which enabled the development of this resource to better equip personal support workers and care aides in their vital roles.