WHAT is the Roadshow?

It’s a series of full-day educational workshops developed in response to an identified need for palliative care training and development throughout rural Alberta.

The benefits of the AHPCA Roadshow include community building and strengthening through networking, and increased knowledge and skills about issues related to hospice palliative care and other associated fields.

WHO attends the Roadshow?

The AHPCA Roadshow participants include multi-agency professionals, such as nurses, social workers, teachers, complementary therapists, and health care administrators. You’ll also find volunteers, caregivers, patients, families, and interested community members in the Roadshow audiences. Over 3,000 Albertans have attended the AHPCA Roadshow in the past ten years.

WHERE has the Roadshow toured?

WHY do Roadshow workshops make a difference?

It’s all about the topics. AHPCA specifically selects Roadshow topics to be practical and applicable to a wide range of community members including those in hospice palliative are. Our workshop facilitators are well-respected experts in their respective fields from within our own province.

Roadshow Topics

2010 We’re All in this Together…..
2011 This Thing Called Grief: How We Can Help
2012 Talking About the Tough Stuff
2013 This Thing Called Grief: with an emphasis on Culture and Customs
2014 Take a Deep Breath: Taking Care of YOU
2015 The Final Journey: Becoming a Compassionate Companion
2016 It’s About Life: Navigating the Reality of Hospice Palliative Care
2017 This Thing Called Grief: It’s Complicated
2018 A Mindful Finale: Spirituality and Ritual at End-of-Life
2019 This Thing Called Grief: All Ages, All Cultures

AHPCA Roadshow Partners:

2020 Roadshow Information

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, AHPCA Board and staff have made the decision to postpone the 2020 AHPCA Roadshow until Spring 2021.

We hope that you will consider joining us next spring! New dates for all locations will be announced soon and registration will open again in early 2021.

Scared to Death of Death

We live in a death-denying culture. While most people grudgingly admit that they are aware of their own eventual death, death remains something rarely discussed. Continued improvements in medical technology fuel temptation to ignore its limits, create a defiant attitude about death and dying, and suggest a failure when death eventually occurs.

Topics to be examined:

The various factors that have influenced our cultural denial and vilification of death

The importance of personal meaning-making and spirituality as we reflect on our own individual mortality

What the dying have to teach us about living

The insights of palliative care as a way of removing the dread around death

Accepting mortality as an integral part of the human experience, and how that might impact the practice of medicine

Meet our Guest Presenters:

Blair Collins, BA, B.Th., RSW, has over 30 years of experience working in a variety of non-profit settings, with expertise in the areas of crisis intervention, addictions, domestic violence, prostitution and sexual abuse, grief and loss and LGBTQ+ issues including HIV and AIDS. During his career he has facilitated hundreds of workshops and retreats on a variety of topics and issues.

Blair presently enjoys working with people as a provincial Marriage Commissioner in Alberta, while maintaining a personal coaching practice along with the delivery of workshops and retreats.

Darrin Parkin is the spiritual care clinician serving at the High River General Hospital. He has been a spiritual care provider for over 25 years. Before accepting the position at the High River Hospital, Darrin was with Hospice Calgary (Rosedale Hospice / SAGE Centre) for four years as spiritual care clinician for palliative end-of-life care as well as grief and bereavement programs and family support.

Darrin comes from Lethbridge where he was a prison chaplain for 13 years (seven as the senior provincial chaplain for Alberta Corrections). During this time, he also taught in the Criminal Justice program at Lethbridge College and took a team of 13 law enforcement people to Uganda to build a clinic in 2010.

Darrin’s area of passion and interest is palliative care as well as grief and bereavement work and teaching health care providers in the areas of spirituality and well-being through conferences and seminars.

Time: 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

$50 for public ($40 in Cold Lake due to subsidy from CLPCS)  /  $25 for AHPCA members

$10 for students (proof of enrollment required)  /  $5 for student AHPCA members

Roadshows may be considered for Continuing Education Credits

Registration opens in early 2020

2020 Locations