New Pediatric Center Aims to Improve Patient, Family Support

The Foundation of Community Hospice & Palliative Care is fueling the launch of a new pediatric center in northern Florida that will support serious and terminally ill youths and their families.

A groundbreaking ceremony for The Dorion Family Pediatric Center is set for Monday, Jan. 27. Construction of the new building is anticipated to complete by the end of this year or early spring 2026, according to Annie Tuttle, executive director of the foundation, which supports Florida-based Community Hospice & Palliative Care, part of Alivia Care.

The center will be located in Jacksonville, Florida, and create a dedicated, child-friendly space for pediatric palliative and hospice patients and their families to receive caregiver support and engage in recreational and therapeutic activities. It will also serve as a central location for interdisciplinary teams of Community PēdsCare, the pediatric program of Community Hospice & Palliative Care.

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“The building is going to offer a sense of community for our kids’ care families,” Tuttle told Hospice News. “They can really draw strength from other people in similar, unique situations. There are families that get kind of isolated and need that interaction. We also looked at the services we’re providing and asked, ‘What can we do to make it easier on our team?’”

Weighing the staffing, patient needs

The new pediatric center will include features such as a sensory therapeutic playroom, a family gathering and events area, a child life specialist center and creative arts room, a music therapy room, a bereavement counseling space, a chapel, meeting rooms and a family office center.

The center will be designed to address a range of nonmedical emotional, practical and psychosocial needs for pediatric populations and their families, said Patrice Austin, director of the Community PēdsCare program.

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“This will be a pediatric support center for palliative- and hospice-level families without medical care provided so we can focus on the emotional, spiritual, social, psychosocial and practical needs of families navigating the challenges of [having] a sick child,” Austin told Hospice News. “The center allows us to go beyond what we traditionally are able to provide in the home and enhance what our medical teams are doing.”

Dorion Family Pediatric Center Photo courtesy of Community Hospice & Palliative Care
The Dorion Family Pediatric Center

A $10 million capital campaign is underway to support the new center’s building construction, maintenance and ongoing operational costs, including staffing expansion.

The center is named after Dottie Dorion, a leading donor for the project and founding member of Community Hospice of Northeast Florida, which later rebranded as Community Hospice & Palliative Care. Dorion is an advocate in the hospice space and has led lobbying efforts at the Florida State Capitol. Her caregiving experiences in pediatric hospice care and advocacy for greater respite services were among the inspirations for the new center.

The center will be available to patients and families receiving palliative and hospice services through the Community PēdsCare program, which supports children and young adults up to 21 years old with medically complex and life-limiting conditions. The program offers several services such as perinatal hospice, pediatric palliative and hospice care, respite, psychosocial support, family and caregiver resources, among others.

Prior to the center, the community-based program did not currently have a dedicated, pediatric-friendly space exclusively for these patients. The initiative to create a new center was in part aimed at helping to reduce travel times for interdisciplinary pediatric staff and allow for more direct bedside care, according to Tuttle.

“The biggest, immediate goal with the center is to have an area for families to come and help to be able to provide more visits and care in the home, because the time on the road will be significantly cut back,” Tuttle said. “The long-term goal is to really expand the [pediatric] program and expand the services we’re offering to families on a larger scale. We want to reach larger numbers and be able to really make an impact [and] provide that extra layer of care.”

In 2024 the Community PēdsCare program had an average daily census (ADC) of 198 pediatric palliative care patients and an ADC of 25 pediatric hospice patients.

During the past year, the program’s child life therapy team logged more than 900 hours driving to patients’ homes across a five-county service region in Florida. The long travel times pose limitations around some of the therapies and activities that can be offered through the pediatric program, according to Tuttle.

Pediatric patients and their families can have very isolating experiences along their illness trajectories, Austin stated. The center offers a dedicated space to help foster deeper connections and engagement among this community with unique needs, she added. Support and activities for siblings will also be a vital part of the services offered.

The new space will essentially serve as a “community hub,” with areas for families who need caregiving and bereavement support, as well as assistance with financial and legal resources, Austin said.

“The idea with the center is that it’s really tailored to children and their families experiencing a loss or illness,” she said. “We’ve learned that there’s a lot of darkness for this patient population, that it’s hard on their families. This will bring them out from that isolation to have mutual support, understanding and companionship with other families. They can start making a connection to a place that is spirited, comfortable and full of joy and life so that when or if they progress in their trajectory, we’re not a new or unfamiliar entity and it could make that transition to hospice easier.”

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