Background: CAPACITI is a virtual education program that teaches primary care teams how to provide an early palliative approach to care. After piloting its implementation, we conducted an in-depth qualitative study with CAPACITI participants to assess the effectiveness of the components and to understand the challenges and enablers to virtual palliative care education. Methods: We applied a qualitative case study approach to assess and synthesize three sources of data collected from the teams that participated in CAPACITI: reflection survey data, open text survey data, and focus group transcriptions. We completed a thematic analysis of these responses to gain an understanding of participant experiences with the intervention and its application in practice. Results: The CAPACITI program was completed by 22 primary care teams consisting of 159 participants across Ontario, Canada. Qualitative data was obtained from all teams, including 15 teams that participated in focus groups and 21 teams that provided reflection survey data on CAPACITI content and how it translated into practice. Three major themes arose from cross-analysis of the data: changes in practice derived from involvement in CAPACITI, utility of specific elements of the program, and barriers and challenges to enacting CAPACITI in practice. Participants reported that the multifaceted approach of CAPACITI was helpful in teaching them how to apply a palliative approach to care in practice. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that CAPACITI training increased their identification of patients requiring palliative care, improved communication skills, and enhanced confidence in providing a palliative approach to care. CAPACITI warrants further study on a national scale using a randomized trial methodology.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Children (UNCRC), put forth in 1989, has generated a global movement in the direction of protecting and promoting children’s rights, resulting in a paradigm change in how children are perceived under the law. While the UNCRC is the most widely ratified international human rights treaty in human history, children’s fundamental right to protection continues to be violated through actions instigated by adults, such as neglect, physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, or being coerced into marriage, wartime activities, or slavery. This is largely a result of international law having no empirical legal binding; since countries are sovereign upon themselves, without domestic enforcement by each individual signatory country, there is no obligation to abide by the terms of international treaties. Applying both a philosophical and legal framework, this paper seeks to provide a critical analysis of whether or not treaties of international law, such as the Convention on the Rights of Children (UNCRC), have an unyielded potential to spark a tangible, beneficial change in the promotion of children’s rights, or if such doctrines are nothing more than glorified pieces of lip service paid to bolster the signatory country’s face value on a global level.

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