Welcome to the portal page of the Palliative Care Association Toolkit (PCAT), a web-based, interactive technical assistance project of the Worldwide Palliative Care Alliance (WPCA), created by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization - USA, aided by an international advisory group of association leaders from around the world. The project is funded by a grant from The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. Based on the diverse experiences of these international advisors, we hope to offer an overview of how to establish a national or regional professional association as well as detailed, step-by-step instructions for building and strengthening an association once it is up and running.
The toolkit is presented in three parts, each of which has its own web page portal. Each section begins with an actual association-building vignette from palliative care leaders around the world. As you look at these vignettes, you will see the great diversity in terms of resources and infrastructure that association organisers can draw upon, although the perennial challenges of association building reappear in every setting. These real-life examples are followed by a variety of tools, definitions, references and other resources to round out the challenge of association building.
For individuals at the beginning of the process of creating a national or regional palliative care association, this section goes through some of the reasons for forming a national association, examples of associations from around the world, basic challenges and responsibilities, tasks of core governance, fund raising and other essential components of association building. What are the skills that are needed to launch a new association? Where can a new organisation’s champions look for assistance? What are the unmet needs that this organisation will address, and can they be quantified?
This part goes into some of the challenges and responsibilities of a growing national association, as well as pitfalls to avoid and opportunities to seize. What are the building blocks of a healthy organisation? Are you ready to partner? What are the keys to creating accountability and building buy-in from a large and diverse constituency? Every lasting organisation goes through a natural evolution. What are the key crossroads and tipping points in that evolution?
The final part of the toolkit focuses on topics that come into play once an organisation has been established and is successfully growing. These topics include ensuring sustainability, creation of separate departments, forming affiliate organisations and expanding beyond national borders to a global arena. This is also the page where the concluding paragraph and acknowledgements are located.
The glossary of terms and abbreviations defines words and acronyms used in the toolkit.
This page will allow you to navigate the topics covered by the PCAT without having to read the toolkit section by section.
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