This year’s campaign, taking place from May 2-8, 2026, will focus on the theme “Take Care of those Who Care”
The World PICU Awareness Week Committee exists to raise awareness about #PedsICU in general and any important themes impacting the specialty by engaging members and key stakeholders in awareness and advocacy activities at a global and regional level. This 7 day event culminates in World PICU Awareness Day on the 2nd Friday of May, annually.
This year’s campaign, taking place from May 2-8, 2026, will focus on the theme “Take Care of those Who Care”
The 2026 campaign focuses on caregiver wellbeing as a fundamental pillar of safe, ethical, and sustainable pediatric intensive care.
The aim of the 2026 World PICU Awareness Week campaign is to elevate caregiver wellbeing as a global priority in pediatric and neonatal critical care.
Specifically, the campaign seeks to:
Raise awareness of caregiver wellbeing as directly linked to patient safety, quality of care, and family-centered outcomes.
Acknowledge the emotional, ethical, and psychological burden faced by healthcare professionals, including workload intensity, moral distress, workforce shortages, and exposure to suffering and death.
Highlight workforce challenges shared across high-resource and low-resource settings, emphasizing that caregiver strain is a global issue, not a local failure.
Promote evidence-based, system-level supportive practices that foster psychological safety, resilience, and professional fulfillment.
Encourage open, stigma-free dialogue across professions and disciplines, normalizing conversations about stress, burnout, and mental health.
Shift the narrative from individual resilience to institutional and leadership responsibility in protecting caregiver wellbeing.
Advocate for sustainable workforce strategies that support retention, professional growth, and long-term resilience of PICU services worldwide.
The psychological and emotional health of PICU professionals directly influences clinical judgment, communication, teamwork, and patient outcomes in pediatric intensive care.
Workforce strain, staffing models, moral distress, and organizational culture play a central role in burnout. Addressing wellbeing requires institutional accountability, not just personal resilience.
Simple actions – ethical debriefs, reflective rounds, protected discussion spaces, recognition practices – can meaningfully improve team morale and psychological safety.
Framing stress as an occupational reality rather than a personal weakness encourages earlier recognition, open conversations, and timely support.
Protecting the wellbeing of the PICU workforce is essential for retention, professional fulfillment, and the long-term resilience of pediatric critical care systems worldwide.
You’re invited! As part of World PICU Awareness Week 2026 (May 2–8), we invite PICU professionals and institutions worldwide to share how you support caregiver wellbeing in your pediatric intensive care unit.
This year’s theme, Take Care of Those Who Care, highlights a simple but powerful truth:
Caregiver wellbeing is patient safety.
We want to showcase how PICUs across the world are protecting, strengthening, and sustaining their teams – through leadership, culture, practical tools, or small intentional changes that make a difference.
Whether you work in a high-resource tertiary center or a resource-limited setting, your experience matters.
• What does caregiver wellbeing mean in your PICU?
• What are you or your institution doing to actively support caregiver wellbeing?
You may reflect on the cultural importance of wellbeing in pediatric intensive care, describe a concrete initiative or policy, or share a small change that has made a meaningful difference in your team.
A particular focus could be on topics like:
In collaboration with OpenPediatrics
Throughout this podcast series, PICU professionals from around the world will share perspectives on caregiver wellbeing, exploring the emotional, ethical, and system-level challenges of working in pediatric intensive care. Each day of the campaign, a new episode will be released, highlighting regional experiences, practical strategies, and leadership approaches that support those who care for critically ill children. Stay tuned and join the conversation!
During World PICU Awareness Week 2026 (May 2–8), this page will feature selected video contributions shared by PICU professionals and institutions around the world.
To be included:
Record your 60-second video on caregiver wellbeing.
Post it on your social media platform (LinkedIn, X, Instagram, Facebook, etc.).
Use the hashtags #WPAW2026 and #PedsICU.
Tag WFPICCS in your post so we can find and amplify your contribution.
Throughout the week, we will curate and showcase videos that reflect the global effort to Take Care of Those Who Care.
Join the movement. Share your voice. Inspire change.
