Place Bonding in Children's Hospice Care Poster presentation Number 180

Background: Relative to the numbers of children with LLI the overall numbers accessing hospices are low. Aim: The study's aim was to explore parents’ perspectives of hospices in one region in England and identify characteristics of services that parents wanted Methods: A two phase qualitative study underpinned by a constructivist grounded theory methodology was employed. Phase 1 - focus groups were run with 24 parents of children accessing the hospice. Phase 2 semi-structured interviews were conducted with 7 parents who did not have any experience of a hospice and a further 7 parents who had some awareness. Results: Three main themes were identified. Coming Home depicts the desire and searching that parents had in seeking out a place, other than their actual home, where their child could be cared for. Coming to terms with this was a struggle and certain characteristics needed to be in place before parents would accept respite. This is living Now depicts the overall sense that parents with a child with a LLI are living life as it is now not as they had planned it. Life is described as a fight, dictated by routines, loss of identity, friendships, potential. Moving forward portrays the idea that there is however a clear sense of direction of travel into a future where the journey is much longer than anticipated, anxieties about the future and transition exist. Discussion - A model of place bonding was developed which offers new insights into the journey that parents take when deciding whether or not to accept help. Five dimensions - familiarity, belongingness, identity, association and rootedness are described which culminate in a sense of rootedness and attachment to the hospice and when present led parents to a sense that they had found in the hospice a place where they felt at 'home'.