Amanda Payne, MDiv

Amanda Payne is the Founder and Executive Director of August Crossing, an innovative model for inpatient pediatric hospice and advanced pediatric palliative care—envisioned to become the first inpatient pediatric hospice in Texas. With over 15 years of experience across healthcare chaplaincy, crisis intervention, nonprofit leadership and advocacy, she brings both clinical depth and bold vision to transforming care for children and families facing serious illness.

 

Having served in high-acuity pediatric settings, Amanda has walked alongside families in their most sacred and devastating moments—critical illness, complex decision-making, and end-of-life care. It is within these spaces that the vision for August Crossing was born: a place where medicine is matched with compassion, where suffering is met with beauty and dignity, and where no family has to navigate the unimaginable alone.

 

Amanda has also led initiatives to address burnout and trauma among healthcare teams, developing a peer-to-peer mental health support program within a major pediatric health system and training clinicians in evidence-based approaches to resiliency.

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Her work extends nationally through advocacy, education, and policy engagement, including efforts in Washington, D.C., to support legislative efforts and systems-level change. She is a sought-after speaker, presenting across the country on trauma-informed care, advocacy, and healthcare resiliency.

 

Amanda founded August Crossing out of a deep conviction that families deserve more—more dignity, more support, more presence, and more peace in the face of profound loss. Her leadership is driven by a belief that the way we care for the most vulnerable reflects who we are—and that August Crossing has the opportunity to redefine what is possible in pediatric palliative and hospice care in Texas and beyond.