The "Teach-to-communicate" educational intervention includes a BASIC COURSE open to all healthcare professionals, non-professional staff and administrative personnel, and an ADVANCED COURSE limited to professionals who are involved in care planning meetings with residents and/or their family carers.

The goal is to improve relational and communication skills in complex situations. Specifically, the course aims to:

1. accommodate emotions and silence;

2. deescalate conflicts;

3. explore and accommodate curative-oriented care preferences;

4. respond to unrealistic or ambivalent care expectations;

5. promote residents’/family carers’ awareness on the disease trajectory;

6. communicate bad news (e.g. prognosis/worsening);

7. support residents and/or their family carers in the decision-making process;

8. support residents and their family carers in processing the illness/loss/mourning (e.g. denial, acceptance, search for meaning).

The course is 16 hours in length, runs over a three months period, and offers highly experiential education:

a) a Forum-theater workshop, i.e. a form of theater where professionals being trained are initially spectators and then are called to intervene and seek solutions by replacing the actors;

b) a simulation workshop on difficult communication scenarios;

c) in the field family care conferences followed by a colleague’s feedback that acted as an external observer and a guided reflection;

d) a community of practice where professionals have the opportunity to share the problems that emerged during the family care conferences and the strategies they adopted; 

e) online asynchronous self-educational activities based on videos with good and bad examples of communication accompanied by a commentary guide; a discussion forum moderated by a communication expert is also available.