Hear From PLIDA Members... 

I have been involved with PLIDA in some capacity over the last 25 years, eight of them as a board member.  PLIDA is an amazing organization of professionals and parents sharing knowledge and friendship around the loss of a baby and a pregnancy that follows.  This organization is a leader in helping members learn about best practice for parents and the professionals who work with them during the most painful time of their lives. - Joann O’Leary, PhD, Prenatal Parent-Infant Specialist

 

What I've witnessed over the years through my involvement with PLIDA is really phenomenal. I've seen people from all over the world come together at our national conference to glean information, develop relationships, and gain innovative skills for providing care for bereaved families. As a past PLIDA President and board member, it has been an honor to collaborate with such an incredible group of professionals and parent advocates. - Catherine Lammert, RN CPLC 

 

As a Neonatologist, Pediatrician and Advocate for Perinatal Hospice/Neonatal Palliative Care for the past ten years I’ve had the opportunity to attend many conferences and read many books and articles on the subject, but nothing replaces the feeling of finding your tribe in person. That is the way I felt when I attended my first PLIDA/IPBC conference in San Antonio in 2014. From the opening keynote, to the poster presentation, to the reflection room, to the parent panel to the closing activity I was immediately blown away. My immediate and continuing thought has been …. “Wow these are my Peeps!” It was the first conference that I had attended that was truly multidisciplinary. I was so excited to be in a room with physicians, nurses, social workers, chaplains, child life specialists, genetic counselors, ethicists, parent advocates and academicians---I learned so much and was inspired to do more. Over the past 6 years I have continued to benefit from PLIDA membership particularly in the areas of developing neonatal palliative care teams, navigating difficult conversations and addressing bias in serving marginalized populations.  Most recently I was afforded the honor of joining the PLIDA Board and am looking forward to helping to grow our membership and expand out panel of membership services. I am most excited to be leading efforts to establish a Diversity and Inclusion Sub-Committee to better address the needs of our marginalized communities experiencing disparities with respect to Neonatal Palliative Care and Neonatal Perinatal Hospice. We begin with the understanding that every family every loss child is different. Each has their own journey to navigate with loss. There are no specific rules, no concrete frameworks, no global approaches. Each family has specific needs, opinions, beliefs, religions, and cultural backgrounds — all of which can impact how they view and would like to receive palliative care services.  It is our desire to be sensitive to and mindful of the cultural and spiritual needs and differences of the children and families through the lens of mutual respect in all of our programs, communication, outreach and forums.
- Dr. 
Terri L. Major-Kincade ….aka Dr. Terri

 

Soon after my career transition from NICU RN to Perinatal Bereavement Nurse, I knew no one else who did this work; it was isolating and limiting. I worked in a tiny windowless closet converted to an office when (desperate for connectedness) I did an internet search and found PLIDA. The landscape of my professional world changed that day. I travelled to Chicago with a poster presentation which wasn't to normal standards because I didn't even know what the finished product was supposed to look like. At that conference, I met leaders in this field who did not discount me because of my inexperience, they invested energy in my development. Since then, I've had the chance to pay that forward and mentor others early in their careers. I'm now published and I lecture nationally and internationally and Im certain that none of this would have been possible without the networking and education made possible through PLIDA. - Tammy Ruiz Ziegler, RN, BSN, CPLC

 

When I decided to become a perinatal bereavement caregiver, I felt like an alien on a foreign planet. Coming from a small, rural community there was no one that could mentor me in bereavement care to the extent that I felt was needed, so I reached out to one of my nursing school professors, praying for guidance. By grace, she placed me in contact with an amazing nurse that became one of my very first mentors. Through her, I joined PLIDA as a member seven years ago, all while developing a bereavement program at the facility I am employed by. For four of those years, I have served on the board, and have been serving as the Treasurer for the past two.  I'm also active in the Education Committee, as I want to help others from small, rural communities have access to the educational and peer support they need in order to provide their patients with the best evidence-based care possible, so that these patients can have the same “golden standard” of care that folks at large hospitals receive. Being inspired by the mission of PLIDA and the phenomenal mentors I've gained, I returned to school as an associate nurse to get my bachelor’s degree and am now working on my master’s degree in nursing education. PLIDA has helped create dreams for myself that I never imagined... dreams to teach bereavement care worldwide, as it is said, “to be a part of the change I want to see in the world”.  Without PLIDA, I am not sure I would have ever had the courage to grow those dreams or chase them. For that, I will forever be grateful.
- Summer Hepler, BSN, RN