Thursday, December 3 and Friday, December 4, 2026
10 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET
ELNEC Train-the-Trainer courses provide nurses with education in hospice and palliative nursing, preparing them to serve as instructors teaching this critical information to other nurses in the specialty.
ELNEC is an acronym that stands for End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium and is an education initiative created by the City of Hope and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. HPNA-sponsored ELNEC Core courses provide nurses with education in palliative care, preparing them to teach the information to practicing nurses and other healthcare professionals. ELNEC courses are written for nurses by nurses.
ELNEC Core/Critical Care is used to educate staff nurses, advanced practice nurses, undergraduate and graduate nursing faculty, administrators, and researchers who work in acute care settings (i.e. medical-surgical and oncology units), clinics, homecare, hospice and palliative care settings. This course incorporates the special palliative care needs in critical care settings. Several national ELNEC Core/Critical Care courses are held each year, either nationally or regionally. This course was previously titled ELNEC Core Train-the-Trainer. The updated title aligns with the City of Hope curriculum.
Course Content
Course content is divided into modules, which include:
- Palliative Nursing Care at the End-of-Life
- Cultural Considerations and Ethical Issues
- Pain Management
- Symptom Management
- Communication
- Final Hours
- Loss, Grief, and Bereavement
- Leadership and Self Care
Hear from our Facilitator
Learn more about the course from facilitator Erin Collins, MN, RN, CHPN®
Continuing Education
Participants may earn 13.75 NCPD contact hours* and 3.0 pharmacotherapeutic contact hours* upon successful completion of the course. Successful completion requires participants to remain engaged throughout the Zoom platform (e.g., cameras on, engaged in breakout sessions, etc.) and completing/submitting the post-activity evaluation within the timeframe specified. Evaluations must be completed within 30 days, by January 4, 2027, in order to receive contact hours. Late evaluations cannot be accepted.
All individuals in a position to control content will be submitting financial disclosure information, and appropriate disclosures will be made prior to the event.
Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association is accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.
*Number of NCPD and pharmacotherapeutic contact hours are subject to change.
Registration
Early Bird (Through September 30, 2026)
Non-Member: $575
Member: $550
Regular (October 1 through November 30)
Non-Member: $625
Member: $600
Group Rate
For group registration rate information, please contact [email protected].
The Hospice and Palliative Nurses Foundation (HPNF) offers scholarships annually for HPNA members to attend an HPNA-sponsored ELNEC course. Learn more and apply here.
Facilitators
Cheryl Thaxton, DNP, APRN, CPNP, FNP-BC, ACHPN®, FPCN®
Dr. Thaxton is an Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) who is certified as a pediatric nurse practitioner and family nurse practitioner. Dr. Thaxton is the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) Program Director at Texas Woman’s University (TWU). She has more than 29 years of experience in nursing which includes several years of experience in critical care, palliative care, primary care, nursing leadership, curriculum development, program development, and as school of nursing faculty.
Erin Collins, MN, RN, CHPN®
Erin Collins is a Certified Hospice and Palliative Care Nurse with 16 years of nursing experience in hospice and adult and pediatric oncology. She co-founded and co-directs a community based organization in Bend, Oregon and works as an end-of-life doula. Erin is the Vice-Chair of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization’s End-of-Life Doula Advisory Council, a board member for the Oregon Hospice and Palliative Care Association and the Oregon state ambassador for the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association. She is a 2022 Cambia Health Foundation Sojourns Scholar with a project to develop continuing education in palliative care for community health workers. After seeing that many patients came to hospice afraid of death and largely unprepared for it, she committed to educating the community at all levels to prepare for and talk about serious and terminal illness with compassion and tenderness. She empowers families to be present with their loved ones and believes that by talking about and planning for serious illness and death, we can ease much of the suffering that arises at the end of life. Erin is a graduate of the Being with Dying and GRACE programs at Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico and a practitioner of Bedside Yoga for end-of-life care.
About the Event
This is a virtual event. The last day to register for this course is November 30, 2026. Registered learners will receive course access information & materials to their HPNA associated email address 3-5 days before course opening.
Cancellation Policy
Registrants must place a cancellation request in writing up to three weeks prior to the event to receive a full refund minus a $100 administrative fee. Cancellations received less than one week prior to the event will not be refunded. Please contact the HPNA Education Department about cancellations.