Caring for NICU Babies and Their Families:  Providing Psychosocial Support in the NICU-
​UNIVERSITY Course

This continuing education course has been created for professionals who work in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit by a multidisciplinary group of professionals with input from more than 100 NICU parents. It is the result of a collaboration between the National Perinatal Association,  Patient + Family Care, and The Preemie Parent Alliance.


The content is: 
  • ​Representative of Potentially Better Practices, and is based on the “Interdisciplinary Recommendations for Psychosocial Support of NICU Parents” published in December, 2015 in Journal of Perinatology. 
  • Clinically relevant, with many suggestions for techniques  NICU staff can use at the bedside to enhance their interaction with NICU parents. 
  • Engaging and story-driven, including quotes, audio and  video clips from graduate NICU parents so that staff will hear firsthand about their needs  and be able to experience the  NICU “in their shoes.” 
  • Resource-rich, with more than 50 downloadable handouts, including bibliographies on each topic, examples of order sets for palliative care, guidelines for how to run a  Debrief Session, trauma-informed care scripts, discharge planning  checklists, and many more. 
  • Family-centered, with emphasis on empowering NICU parents to become successful in their roles as parents. 
  • Parent-approved and contributed to by more than 100 graduate NICU parents who share their personal experiences to help guide and improve care for future NICU parents and families. 
  • Desperately needed, with research showing that NICU parents desire better communication and support at the bedside, and that NICU staff have unmet needs for skill development in the  area of communication with parents. 
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The course consists of seven different lessons, each providing one hour of continuing education credit, including: Communication skills  Emotional support of NICU parents Peer-to-peer support  Family-centered developmental care Palliative and bereavement care  Discharge planning and follow-up Caring for the caregiver (Staff support). 
*Completing this course will result in receiving 8 CEU's or 7 CME credits, based on licensure