Carousel Program

Carousel is a pediatric palliative and concurrent hospice care program providing specialized care to infants, children, and adolescents diagnosed with a life-limiting illness in the comfort of their home.

Our experienced interdisciplinary team consists of pediatric nurses, social workers, chaplains, a medical director, clinical supervisor, bereavement counselor, and volunteers. This team works alongside your child and family to provide holistic care to meet the physical, emotional, psychosocial, and spiritual needs of your whole family.

Our service is appropriate for children from birth until age 21 at any stage of a life-limiting illness.

Both palliative and concurrent hospice care provide an additional layer of support to the medical care and treatment your child is already receiving. Our goal is to relieve symptoms to promote comfort and quality of life at home while supporting your child and family in your hopes and goals.

Specifically, our team can help with pain and symptom management, care coordination, support with decision making, emotional and spiritual support, connecting to community and financial resources, and assisting with advanced planning and providing end of life care when appropriate.

Palliative care Palliative care is appropriate for children with a variety of life-limiting conditions including those for which curative treatment may be possible, those with a progressive illness, and those with complex health needs for whom quality of life can be enhanced by treatment. It is comfort-based care in addition to the medical care and treatment your child already receives.

Concurrent hospice care is appropriate for children with advanced illness as well as end of life care. This support is focused on maximizing comfort and quality of life at home. As part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, the law changed allowing hospice-eligible children to be enrolled in hospice care and continue to seek curative treatment at the same time. This provision of the ACA is called Concurrent Care, and it means that families no longer have to choose between curative and comfort care for their child. Peri-natal hospice Peri-natal hospice focuses on providing support and planning to families when a life-limiting or terminal diagnosis is made in utero.

Working in King/Snohomish county since the early 2000s, we continue to be the only home-based pediatric palliative and concurrent hospice care program in the area. We will walk with you, hope with you, and support you as you care for your child. We will accompany you on this journey wherever it may lead, you don't have to do this alone.