GLOBAL
TREEHOUSE
TRUSTEES 2025 ANNUAL REPORT
LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
When we founded Global Treehouse, we were clear about one thing: tools alone do not change systems; people do. But people cannot act without the right support, data, community and visibility. In 2025, we saw that belief tested and strengthened.
We have seen providers use the Magnify Tool not just as a document, but as a practical lever for change. With more than 700 downloads, clinicians across multiple countries identified concrete improvements in their services — from implementing structured family feedback surveys and strengthening pain assessment, to analysing referral and cancellation data to improve access to respite care, and addressing staff wellbeing where secondary trauma was identified. The translations into Portuguese, French and Spanish, alongside our first AI-enabled assistant, have made the tool more accessible across contexts.
We have seen leaders from Brazil to Kenya translate ambition into action — building services, shaping local conversations and connecting internationally. In the Asia-Pacific region, 13 hospital teams worked through focused sprints, using their own service data to prioritise changes. These are early but meaningful signals of locally led system building.
We have also seen a shift in how the sector approaches technology. Through our published principles, research scans, innovation dialogue and competition, we have started to bring responsible technology into practical discussion within the field. Children’s palliative care is deeply human work. Precisely because of that, it should shape how technology is adopted, not be left behind.
Behind the scenes, 2025 was a year of strengthening foundations. We welcomed new clinical expertise to our board, invested in our team and set a clear direction for the next stage of our growth.
Across all of this, one pattern is clear: when leaders are equipped with practical tools and connected to peers, change becomes more possible — and more visible. This is the multiplier role Global Treehouse is beginning to play: helping the knowledge, courage and innovation already present in the field travel further, faster and with greater confidence.
Looking ahead, we will stay focused: deepening our anchor partnerships, expanding the practical use of the Magnify Tool, advancing responsible innovation and backing leaders who are building and scaling services.
Global Treehouse is not a clinical provider, and not a technology company. We exist to connect people, ideas and investment so that compassionate, high-quality care becomes more accessible — wherever a child lives.
2025 did not solve the challenge. But it showed that practical, locally led change is underway — and that the right support can accelerate it.
Thank you to our partners, trustees, advisors and supporters who make this work possible.
With determination,
Laura Dale-Harris, Executive Director
LETTER FROM THE CHAIR
In a difficult year for many in the public health sector, I am pleased that Global Treehouse has continued to expand and strengthen as we work to improve children’s palliative care around the world.
As many children’s palliative care providers and the families they support struggle with increasing uncertainties over funding and other pressures, the need for innovation has never been greater. Fortunately, the opportunities to innovate — through new tools, new business models and new ways of working — are becoming faster, more affordable and more accessible.
While still in its early stages, this report documents the considerable achievements already made through our work, thanks to our brilliant staff and our ever-growing network of partners, advisors and collaborators around the world.
With artificial intelligence making a huge impact on the wider world in 2025, Global Treehouse has helped steer the transformative power of this and other technologies within the children’s palliative care sector. This work has been foundational, guiding the debate on the principles and ethics of these new tools; informational, by collating evidence, documenting case studies and celebrating breakthrough uses; and practical, by working with the growing number of provider communities adopting our Magnify Tool.
Innovation means far more than new technologies, of course, and responding to the funding squeeze affecting the sector has also meant finding new ways to communicate the value of children’s palliative care. We were pleased to support several funders in making their first investments in children’s palliative care this year. Looking ahead to 2026, this will continue to be a key theme as we work to develop new narratives and methods for sharing the stories of the 8 million children worldwide in need of children’s palliative care, and of the individuals and organisations working to support them.
As we move forward, our focus is to build on this foundation to continue supporting local leaders doing remarkable work around the world, advancing the responsible adoption and adaptation of new technologies and shaping new narratives among global partners to mobilise more investment in this essential component of care.
In partnership,
Jonty Roland, Chair of Trustees
OUR VISION, OBJECTIVES, AND IMPACT
Objectives and Activities
Our Vision
Our vision is that every child, regardless of their health condition, receives the palliative care support they need to live life to the fullest. Our mission is to catalyse change, scale investments and build a supportive community to advance paediatric palliative care globally. Together, we’re building a community of locally rooted, globally connected initiatives to transform children’s palliative care worldwide.
Children’s Palliative Care
Children’s palliative care (CPC) provides a holistic and active approach to care for children with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions, ensuring they and their families have the best possible quality of life. This care is delivered alongside curative or life-prolonging treatments and can include management of pain and other distressing symptoms, respite breaks for families, care at the end of life and bereavement support. Children’s palliative care is provided in various settings: children’s hospices, hospitals (including specialist and tertiary care), community health centres and children’s own homes.
Our Objectives
The trustees have regard for the focus on providing a public benefit with all of our efforts. Our objectives, as laid out in our governing document, the purposes of the Charitable Incorporated Organisation, are:
To relieve sickness and to improve the lives and treatment of children and young people with life-limiting and life-threatening conditions, their families and carers globally. In particular, by working with hospitals, hospices and other stakeholders to bring the best practices to bear and improve access to and quality of children’s palliative care globally.
To advance the education of the public in general (and particularly amongst those working in health and social care) in all areas relating to palliative care and/or pain relief for children and young people. In particular, by creating and supporting innovation-oriented networks and promoting the provision of the best quality children’s palliative care globally.
Global Treehouse Foundation’s aims, objectives and planned activities were based on the Charities Act 2011 and the Charity Commission’s general guidance on public benefits.
Our Impact
Achievements and Performance
As we work towards our vision of every child receiving the palliative care support they need to live their lives to the fullest, Global Treehouse is proud to share our work from 2025.
IMPACT
TECHNOLOGY
Leveraging the Role of Technology and AI for Human-Centred Care
In 2025, Global Treehouse focused on bringing responsible, rapidly evolving technology, including AI, into children’s palliative care in a grounded, practitioner-led way. Our activities reduced hesitation and abstraction around technology and helped practitioners and partners engage with AI and other digital tools in an informed, values-led way that aligned with the deeply human nature of care.
Throughout the year, our efforts helped demystify the role of technological innovation. Global Treehouse participated in a workshop at the International Children’s Palliative Care Network (ICPCN) conference, where we brought innovation to the forefront of the conversation about children’s palliative care and discussed the rapidly evolving technological landscape. A clear theme emerged from the thoughtful and candid conversations: practitioners and partners want to engage with AI and other technology in thoughtful, relevant ways that strengthen compassion, connection, and quality of life for children and families — and they need tools and training to help them navigate emerging technology.
With these principles as our guide, Global Treehouse published a technology and AI resource hub, “Harnessing Technology and AI for Human-Centred Care.” This platform provides a single access point to a wide array of technologies available to practitioners and families.
The hub includes:
Magnify Tool AI: Created for children’s palliative care providers, this powerful tool uses prompts and user-uploaded evidence to help providers strengthen their practice, improve data use, and plan for future care. You will find more on this tool on page 9.
Technology in the Children’s Palliative Care Library: This open-access library lists technologies currently used within children’s palliative care globally, spotlights ideas for application or adaptation in new and novel contexts, and creates a shared knowledge base. It is a living resource, continuously shaped and updated through contributions from the field.
Rapid Scan of Research: This review of existing literature on digital innovation in children’s palliative care examines how technology is currently used and how it could potentially improve access and quality of care. It aims to map existing and emerging tools, assess user attitudes and barriers, and identify priority areas for investment and scaling. One key finding: digital solutions have strong potential to improve care, but their impact depends on thoughtful design and overcoming systemic barriers such as training, funding and infrastructure.
Virtual Community Discussion: This WhatsApp community for parents and caregivers provides discussion opportunities and a space to ask questions about technology and AI in children’s palliative care.
A foundational step in leveraging technology in human-centred care was the publication of our AI and technology principles for children’s palliative care, which serve as a model of how technology can support children and families in their most vulnerable moments. Our vision is that technology and AI within healthcare will strengthen compassionate care — not substitute for it. These principles help guide Global Treehouse as we act as a bridge between emerging technologies and the children and families who need high-quality care. Every child receiving palliative care deserves an opportunity to live life to the fullest, and we strive to set a global example of how innovation can support children with integrity and compassion.
Children’s palliative care — the full continuum of care that seeks to ensure the best possible quality of life for children with life-limiting conditions — is profoundly human and relational. Precisely because of this, we believe it has the potential to benefit greatly from digital innovation that amplifies compassion.
COLLABORATION SPOTLIGHT
The Radical Innovation Challenge
Global Treehouse was proud to co-create, host and fund the 2025 African Palliative Care Association (APCA) Radical Innovation Challenge. This groundbreaking initiative was created to spark new ideas that will transform palliative care and bereavement support across Africa. The challenge invited participants to radically rethink the quality, accessibility, delivery, equity and effectiveness of care for individuals with serious illnesses and their families. The results were a wide array of creative and innovative solutions from finalists, all leveraging new technologies to improve access to resources and services.
The winner, Nabunje Diana Lubega, is a software engineer and project manager at MRT IT Peaks Ltd who led the development of mPallCare, a digital health platform designed to improve care delivery for individuals with life-limiting illnesses. Already piloted in a refugee settlement, this platform offers scalable, data-driven care for some of Africa’s most vulnerable populations.
Finalist Zama Ndlazi is a medical officer at a long-term psychiatric hospital in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Her innovation advocates for integrating palliative care into mental health services within South Africa’s psychiatric hospitals — uniting fragmented systems and restoring dignity in life and death for society’s most marginalised.
Finalist Nuhamin Tekle Gebre is a physician, palliative care researcher and advisor for palliative care for the Ministry of Health, Ethiopia. Her digitally enabled, home-based model transforms basic mobile phones into powerful palliative care tools, empowering community health workers with adaptive decision support, symptom tracking and specialist mentorship.
MAGNIFY + PROGRAMS
Sparking Improvements in Palliative Care
In 2025, Global Treehouse supported palliative care providers by empowering them to reflect on their data to build evidence-based roadmaps for change. Through our research scan and ongoing field engagement, Global Treehouse positioned itself as a credible partner for scaling evidence-based practice. At the heart of this progress was the Magnify Tool, a customisable resource that helps children’s palliative care providers and teams explore and use their service data. This tool was launched in 2024 and encompasses 100 metrics organised into 10 focus areas to help providers across the globe demystify and contextualise service data. The Magnify Tool is available in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish, and is free for all providers.
COLLABORATION SPOTLIGHT
Asia Hospice Palliative Care Network
Global Treehouse and the Asia Pacific Hospice Palliative Care Network (APHN) partnered to dramatically expand the Magnify Tool to impact children’s palliative care providers. From May to October 2025, 13 paediatric palliative care teams showed the power of strategically focusing on improving their practices with the Magnify Tool and their own service data. Colleagues aligned on quality improvement focus areas and learned from other leaders across the region.
“As a palliative care practitioner and paediatrician, it was so wonderful to facilitate a small group and explore in-depth the work happening within and across teams. For paediatric palliative care teams ready to examine their own practices, download the Magnify Tool and — most importantly — focus on an area of your service you want to better understand related to your data.”
– Dr Ng Su Fang
Magnify By The Numbers
700+
downloads globally
15
participating countries
20+
providers supported through deeper implementation work, including cohorts, mentoring and quality improvement support
The Magnify Tool Cohort
Global Treehouse supported a global cohort of providers — from Kenya, the United Kingdom, South Africa and Kuwait — through months of mentoring and coaching. The Magnify Tool cohort focused on using the tool to interpret their data and initiate quality improvements. Five cohort participants completed full improvement cycles, translating insights from their data into concrete interventions that have enhanced the quality of the care they provide. One resulting initiative, led by Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice in the United Kingdom, used referral data to inform strategic improvements and was shared with an international audience.
The Magnify Tool AI Assistant
To make the Magnify Tool even more accessible to providers, Global Treehouse launched the Magnify Tool AI Assistant. This low-risk innovation allowed providers to engage more easily with their data and supporting resources and was met with strong early uptake. Built on NotebookLM, the assistant uses practical prompts, allowing teams to ask plain-language questions to learn more about their existing service data and integrate insights into day-to-day decision-making. The AI assistant enhances the Magnify Tool by supporting faster learning, clearer interpretation and more collaborative use across teams. It enables access in over 80 languages and opens new pathways for providers worldwide to translate data into action.
LEADERS
Learning Together:
Growing Our Community of Innovative Leaders
In 2025, Global Treehouse saw our community come into sharper focus. We were more connected, more visible, and more steadfast in our collective voice. Our individual relationships with organisations and partners worldwide began to coalesce into a more dynamic, peer-driven network of leaders shaping the future of children’s palliative care. At the heart of this progress was a simple but powerful idea: leaders learn best from one another, through intentional collaboration and partnership. We are proud of the breadth and scope of our leadership collaborations.
Our partnerships extended across the globe.
We partnered with children’s palliative care leaders in Romania, Kenya, Brazil, and Italy to share resources such as the Magnify Tool and to help organisations better articulate their impact and scale their work. In Brazil, we were proud partners with Casa Arara Azul, including presenting at their inaugural training series and facilitating shared learning with worldwide leaders, including the Spanish Enriqueta Villavecchia Foundation.
We supported South Asian leaders through the Two Worlds Cancer Collaboration Children’s Palliative Care Leadership Programme.
Global Treehouse supported emerging children’s palliative care providers from across the globe, including the 2024 and 2025 leadership cohorts. We contributed faculty expertise in the programme's storytelling strand, funding innovation and strategic communication. We also offered targeted mentorship to leaders from Nepal and India.
We hosted a panel during the Skoll World Forum, dedicated to human-centred children’s palliative care.
The conversation, “Dignity in Childhood: Closing the Gap in Palliative and Serious Illness Care”, brought together experts, philanthropists and social innovators to challenge assumptions and reframe the narrative around children’s palliative care on a global stage.
We participated in a World Health Organization (WHO) working group on palliative care.
Global Treehouse advised the WHO working groups on the use of digital tools in palliative care and contributed expertise on digital health to support the development of the WHO digital tool roadmap.
COLLABORATION SPOTLIGHT
Living Room International
Global Treehouse’s partnership with Living Room International in Western Kenya demonstrates what is possible when locally rooted expertise is paired with global collaboration. Living Room International brings over 20 years of experience to children’s palliative care and has served over 1,600 children. A cornerstone of the support they offer is the Micah Guesthouse, which has supported over 1,100 children and caregivers receiving oncology care in Eldoret, Kenya, since 2023. They hoped to expand their services locally and serve as a roadmap for similar programs in the region. They partnered with Global Treehouse to try to scale their existing holistic, family-centred care model so that families across Kenya could receive high-quality palliative care.
Together, we co-developed a children’s palliative care model for practitioners and partners designed to expand access to high-quality, compassionate care for children living with life-limiting conditions. This model was created through a structured, user-centred process that included regional stakeholder discussions, staff workshops and interviews with caregivers. These deep listening sessions surfaced the values that families and caregivers cared about most and revealed challenges to be addressed, including late referrals into palliative care and gaps in access to mental health and bereavement support for families.
The resulting model reflects what families value most: care that is holistic, responsive and grounded in dignity. The impact of this model of care on children and families is tangible and deeply human, as it extends beyond clinical treatment to include emotional and spiritual support, play therapy and education and bereavement care. It helps to ensure that children can live as fully as possible, and that families are supported at every stage of the journey. This collaboration has helped to shift the experience of palliative care from isolation and distress toward connection and hope, ensuring that every child and family is met with compassion and dignity.
INVESTMENT
Mobilising Confidence and Capital in Children’s Palliative Care
In 2025, Global Treehouse saw tangible success in translating ideas, relationships and leadership into meaningful investment for children’s palliative care. There is growing confidence among funders that children’s palliative care is a solvable, systems-level challenge, and we are grateful to the partners and funders who recognise the critical nature of this work.
Thank you to:
Albert Hunt Foundation
Isabella Seràgnoli Foundation and MAIS Spa
T. & J. Meyer Family Foundation
The Kaizen Foundation
COLLABORATION SPOTLIGHT
Sanofi Collective
Investment in grief and bereavement care means that families are not left to navigate their most challenging moments alone. In 2025, Global Treehouse was proud to lead a grant process that secured €300,000 in new investment from the Foundation S - the Sanofi Collective. This transformative three-year project will deliver comprehensive grief and social-emotional support care to families affected by childhood cancer in Kenya.
With more than 3,000 children are diagnosed with cancer in Kenya each year, families often face late diagnoses, low survival rates and limited access to supportive care. Fewer than 5% of children and their families receive holistic palliative care services. Together, project partners will strengthen paediatric oncology support and deliver grief and bereavement care through three key areas: Capacity building and health system strengthening, which includes training physicians, nurses, and psychosocial workers in culturally sensitive grief and end-of-life care; empowering families through increased access to grief and bereavement support in the form of a bereaved parents advisory network, peer-led bereavement support groups, sibling visitation, counselling and legacy activities; and supporting children through integrated psychosocial care for paediatric oncology patients within hospitals.
It is a significant milestone in integrating social-emotional and grief support in healthcare systems — areas essential to the dignity and well-being of children and families. This project will be headed by AMPATH, with partners Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH), Faraja Cancer Support Trust and Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH). Global Treehouse is proud to be part of the international partners on this collaborative project.
MATURING
A Year of Growth
Amid the accomplishments and progress in children’s palliative care in 2025, Global Treehouse continued to mature and grow as an organisation. We strengthened our communications and visibility in the service of learning, connection and narrative change. Our participation in global conferences and our support for cohorts of palliative care leaders helped tell the stories of those affected by life-limiting childhood illnesses and made clear the need for innovation in children’s palliative care. We expanded our external communications, including the launch of a new blog interface, increased our social media presence on Instagram and BlueSky, and built out a dynamic, interactive website.We also strengthened the internal foundations necessary to deliver complex, multi-country work consistently and with resilience. We grew our internal staff and onboarded Dr Renée McCulloch as a strategic trustee. Dr McCulloch is a leading consultant in Paediatric Palliative Medicine and Deputy Medical Director at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital (GOSH), and she brings more than 20 years of leadership in the field. Most importantly, Global Treehouse continued to grow our community. We amassed teams of leaders, experts and advocates, all aligned with our mission: to help providers deliver palliative care to children that is compassionate, dignified, and human-centred.
Board of Advisors
Alex Jakana, Gates Foundation
Andrew Clarke, Save the Children UK
Dr Annabel Howell, Children’s Hospices Across Scotland (CHAS)
Brian Walusimbi, Bless the Child Foundation
Dianne Gray, Hospice and Healthcare Communications and Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Foundation
Dominick Kennerson, HSBC Innovation Banking
Dr Eve Namisango, African Palliative Care Association
Ivor Williams, Mortals
Jonathan Cotter, National Center for Pediatric Palliative Care Homes
Dr Megan Doherty, Two Worlds Cancer Collaboration
Miguel López de Silanes, Family Office Exchange
Nagui Yassa, Tech leader (product and marketing)
Dr Poh-Heng Chong, HCA Hospice
Dr Tagore Charles, Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice
“We are proud to welcome this exceptional group of advisors to Global Treehouse. Their diverse expertise, experience and insights are crucial as we continue to advance our mission to catalyse change, scale investments and build a supportive community for children’s palliative care globally. With their invaluable guidance, we are ever more confident in our ability to transform access and ensure every child receives the compassionate, high-quality care they deserve to live life to the fullest.”
– Laura Dale-Harris, Global Treehouse