Call for Applications: IHF Seed Grants for Creative Approaches to Encouraging Advance Care Planning Conversation in Residential Care 2026
Application Deadline: Thursday 30th April 2026 (5.00pm)
Irish Hospice Foundation and Caru offer Seed Grants for creative approaches to encouraging conversation in Residential Care about Advance Care Planning.
A growing body of practice supporting “creativity in residential care settings” exists. At its core, this is about humanising care to support residents, staff, and beloveds. However, there is little that encourages conversation about Advance Care Planning. Or directly address the challenges faced by residents, beloveds, or staff in normalising conversations about Advance Care Planning.
Surveys and reports including National End of Life, Time to Reflect, Dying Well at Home, Dying, Death, and Bereavement in Ireland 2026, and Telling It Like It Is; Combatting Ageism, show appropriate conversations about advance care planning help humanise care in residential care settings. Open discussion about end-of-life planning can reduce stress at challenging times by creating an opportunity for people to talk about their wishes and expectations. Often people lack confidence to do so. Creative approaches, the use of the arts or cultural tools, can help.
IHF’s Arts and Cultutral Engagement team seek up to six applicants to propose projects developed from their own awareness and expertise that encourage and support conversations about the area of Advance Care Planning in residential care. These might be led by an artist, musician, performer, creative or craftworker in collaboration with a residential care setting. Or they might be led by healthcare workers, activity co-ordinators, or teams in collaboration with creatives.
Alongside the Seed Grant, Irish Hospice Foundation’s Caru, Arts and Cultural Engagement, and Advance Care Planning / Think Ahead Teams will:
- Deliver training in:
- Advance Care and Think Ahead Planning
- Opening and facilitating sensitive conversations
- Provide ongoing bespoke mentoring to the creative and host residential care setting, including responding to queries.
- Devise an evaluation framework to assess benefits and outcomes.
- Create an appropriate communication strategy to tell the story of this work.
These Seed Grants encourage creative exploration through “micro-financing and mentorship” in partnership with a residential care setting. The aim may be to start a new project or help existing projects gain momentum. It may be an artist, creative practitioner, activities coordinator, healthcare worker, resident or kinship group who has a good idea. It may be something planned for ages or a new notion. Successful applications must indicate how they will seek to sustain or extend the programme.
Successful candidates will join a nationwide Peer Network for capacity building, which connects these projects with quality improvement, staff engagement and care competencies. Therefore, we are looking for proposals from applicants willing to exchange information and can demonstrate a commitment to creative work with older adults, vulnerable populations, people in residential care or similar.
About Seed Grants 2026 – Advance Care Planning in Residential Care
Awards are in the region of €2,500 per successful applicant. We hope to offer up to six awards – one per HSE healthcare region.
Applications must include:
- A letter of support from the residential care setting confirming collaboration has been discussed and agreed between the parties. Or the equivalent from the creative partner.
- Details of considerations given to how the focus of this project can be addressed meaningfully.
- Details of commitment to creative work with older adults, vulnerable populations, people in residential care or similar.
Applicants must demonstrate how they propose to:
- Use creativity to encourage advance care planning conversations.
- Provide staff awareness training and involvement.
- Build on the Seed Grant phase to embed it into service delivery as standard.
Garda Vetting will also be required.
Application Procedure
Apply via the digital application form on the Irish Hospice Foundation website.
Key Dates:
- Applications Open: Tuesday 31st March 2026
- Applications Close: Thursday, 30th April (5:00pm)
- Applicants Notified: Wednesday 13th May 2026
All applicants notified this week - Public Announcement: Monday 18th May 2026
- Projects Commence: Monday 25th May 2026 (23 weeks)
- Projects Completed: Monday 19th October 2026
All successful projects must end by this date
Additional Support Needs
We do our best to accommodate people with disabilities who want to submit an application or who have difficulties in accessing online services. We will tailor support to individual requests. For help submitting your application, please contact: Elizabeth Hutcheson (arts@hospicefoundation.ie / 01 963 1158)
Please do so as soon as possible before the submission deadline of 30th April 2026 (5.00pm).
Selection Process
All proposals will be reviewed by Irish Hospice Foundation, Caru and / or representatives. Decisions will be made based solely on the details in the application form. All decisions are final.
For more information, please contact:
- Elizabeth Hutcheson (elizabeth.hutcheson@hospicefoundation.ie)
- Dominic Campbell (dominic.campbell@hospicefoundation.ie)
Take a look at the 2024 Arts in Residential Care Seed Grant Projects:
In this video, Caru Regional Lead CHO8, Sharon O’Brien, introduces the 2024 Arts in Residential Care Seed Grant projects for creative exploration and responses to grief and loss and the profound impact these had on residents, staff, and relatives.
About IHF Arts and Cultural Engagement
Since IHF’s Arts and Cultural Engagement programme began in 2021, initially with support from the Creative Ireland Programme, they have focused mainly on the bereaved and grieving. In this time, they have led over 90 collaborative projects and launched a modular education training course exploring the:
- Role of artists in bereavement and death.
- Cultural understanding of grief and loss in a diverse society.
- Importance of local community for bereavement support.
- Impact on care staff where personal and professional grief combine
- Relationship between grief, mental illness, health and wellbeing.
In 2024, they supported six Seed Grant funded initiatives to encourage creative exploration and responses to grief and loss in a residential care setting. Selection was made to align with Caru’s ambition as a quality improvement programme. Awardees included activity co-ordinators, artists, educators, and academics. Using a wide variety of creative practice, each project facilitated safe conversations about dying, death, grief, and loss. Feedback was unanimously positive, with all involved citing they had a significant impact on staff, residents, and families. A report on this project is available to download here.
Their ambition with this current round of Seed Grant funded projects is to further develop their understanding of what creativity offers people in a residential care setting. In parallel, how to support artists and staff facilitate conversations about advance care planning, what best practice is, and how to work in care systems all in support of “a good death”.
Learn more at: www.hospicefoundation.ie/arts