The Courageous Provider Awards annually recognize individual pediatric providers advancing the impact of pediatric palliative care (PPC) through their work and collaboration with others. Nominees must excel in engaging with patients, parents or other caregivers, and/or other pediatric specialists in the essential values of palliative care, especially its holistic, multidisciplinary approach. They must demonstrate qualities of compassion, tenacity and empathy in journeying with children and their families.

Courageous Parents Network is deeply grateful to our funders—the Ilene Beal Foundation and the Margaret Stewart Lindsay Foundation—whose generosity makes it possible to honor and celebrate these leaders, and to the providers, patients and families that nominate them.

2022 Nominations are Now CLOSED

The Funders

Ilene Beal achieved great success and had a major impact in the Boston banking world. She was a dedicated and meticulous banker with a big heart, who did everything she could to help, mentor, and encourage other women to follow their dreams and passions. She often said that women can and should do whatever they want professionally. She died in 2015 after a valiant battle against cancer.

The Ilene Beal Charitable Foundation’s goal is to maintain her legacy by supporting those fighting health issues, increasing the ability of hospitals to provide high quality care, mentoring and supporting women and disadvantaged people in underrepresented fields, and lending support to innovative people striving to improve our community.

Margaret Stewart Lindsay, a native Midwesterner, used her experience of personal tragedy to live a life of great compassion for those who suffer adversity. She was a longtime resident of Massachusetts and, from her homes in Beacon Hill and on Martha’s Vineyard, found countless ways to help both friends and strangers in need. She died suddenly, in 1999.

The Margaret Stewart Lindsay Foundation continues her legacy by supporting organizations focused on a wide range of social and environmental causes, especially providing relief to those who suffer from disabilities or disadvantage,and families and children suffering from serious illness, as well as those supporting arts that offer therapeutic benefit.

Prior Award Winners

2021
Hanna Epstein, DNP, CPNP is a Nurse Practitioner in the Pediatric Palliative Care Program of the Medical University of South Carolina, Shawn Jenkins Children’s Hospital. In nominating her, a patient family member wrote: “From helping us express our wishes and advocating for life saving treatment, to being a shoulder to cry on, she has helped provide a quality of life for [our child] and our entire family … she always seems to be in the moment with us, making us feel as if we are truly being heard.” Her humanity, selflessness and approach to raising up others are among the qualities that she shares in common with Ilene Beal.

Carly D. Levy, MD is an Attending Physician and Program Director for the Nemours/A.I. duPont Hospital for Children Hospice and Palliative Medicine Fellowship. In the essays that supported her nomination, she was recognized for her focus on ensuring that the care team understand and respond to family needs and concerns. Her habitual statement “Let’s just name that” inspired the selection committee, as it corresponds to CPN’s essential value of courage in working with colleagues and families in the face of often-unthinkable conversations and their effects on decision-making.

Monica Holland, PNP-BC, MSN, CHPPN is a nurse practitioner in the Bridges Pediatric Palliative Care Program at Oregon Health & Science University Doernbecher Children’s Hospital. Her nominator wrote, “Her exquisite listening skills enable her to hear what patients and families want and need, both during the times of joy and the times that are challenging. She is skilled at helping families find the strength and inner resources to focus on having (in her words) ‘more good days.’” The emphasis on having “good days” resonated with the Selection Committee, as it is so central to both Margaret Lindsay’s legacy and the essential mission of palliative care.

2020
Kim Juanico, RN, BSN, CHPPN, is the Holtz Children’s Hospital (Jackson Memorial Hospital, Miami) Pediatric Palliative Care Nurse Coordinator. In the essays that supported her nomination for the Award, she was enthusiastically endorsed for her commitment to the field of pediatric palliative care; to her patients and their families; and to supporting her colleagues, particularly as they participate together in challenging conversations with parents and other caregivers.

2019
The inaugural, 2019 Courageous Provider Award was presented to Patricia J.(Pat) O’Malley, MD. Dr. O’Malley serves as Medical Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Pediatric Palliative Care Service and as Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. In announcing this award, CPN Founder and Executive Director Blyth Taylor Lord cited Dr. O’Malley’s “dedication to seeing and treating the family unit with an eye to alleviating the physical and emotional pain, fear and isolation common to so many facing lifespan-limiting pediatric illness … she truly makes a difference in how families cope and remember.”