Claves y tendencias actuales de la Pedagogía Hospitalaria

Abstract

We introduce this article with the conceptual delimitation of Hospital Pedagogy as the holistic and systematic education of sick and convalescent children, whatever the particulars of their illness, in mandatory school age, throughout the process of hospitalisation. Secondly we point at the most important technical and legal documents that have endorsed this pedagogical action until went into effect the "Ley Orgánica de Calidad de la Enseñanza" (L.O.C.E.). Right after that we analize the three classical fields of action in Hospital Pedagogy: hospital school, the education centre where the child is enrolled and family home. We also make an analysis of professional profile and functions of hospital teacher and home teacher to identify, after that, their competences and to reflect about how the qualification and improvement training programs for these proffesionals should be. We emphasize the importance of team working as the only possible way of work and the convenience of the introduction of New Technologies of Information and Communication into daily work in the three intervention contexts, presenting examples of "good practices" in using these resources. We finish the article with the introduction of eight questions to be used to reflect about the future of Hospital Pedagogy.