Hospice Foundation of America
E-Newsletter
Volume 6, Issue 7
July 2006
http://www.hospicefoundation.org

Hospice is the only medical system in which bereavement care is mandated as part of its Medicare benefit, and HFA has been a leader in education around these issues. But we also continue to learn a great deal from our audiences--the nurses, social workers, clergy members, chaplains, volunteers and others who accompany dying persons and their loved ones on this difficult journey through death and through grief.

As we share below some of the areas and issues that we’ll be looking at over the next year, we welcome your input. What grief-related end-of-life issues are most prevalent, or most challenging, in your community? In what way have these been challenging? That is, exactly what is the nature of the challenge? How has your hospice or other organization been able to respond to these challenges? Please send your response to questions@hospicefoundation.org

We’ll take a hiatus with this e-newsletter in August, but when we return in September we hope to be able to utilize this forum to share your concerns, your ideas, and the ways that you’ve been able to put your knowledge into practice.

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Focus on: Concerns and Issues in Grief and Bereavement

In a recent HFA e-news interview, Dr. Ken Doka, PhD, HFA’s Bereavement Consultant, noted that a great deal of professional knowledge exists around current issues in grief and bereavement that have not always been fully translated into daily clinical practice. HFA’s 2007 teleconference and companion book will allow this knowledge to be explored comprehensively, both work that has been done around grief during life-limiting illness, as well as the grief issues that follow death. Internationally-known authors such as Colin Murray Parkes, Charles Corr, Phyllis Silverman and Mary Vachon will help bring together cutting-edge knowledge of these issues, and offer techniques that professionals can use to apply this knowledge to their own practice.

The process of grief counseling with persons who are dying will be examined, using techniques like reminiscence and life review. Finding ways to support families at the moment of death, always one of the strong points of hospice care, is gaining more attention in other institutions as well. Understandings of the grief process have changed dramatically in the last few decades, and professionals are continually challenged to examine their programs and practice to reflect these changes. As professionals gain more knowledge about issues such as the impact of culture, gender, or developmental aspects of grieving, changes in practice will naturally follow. And the evolution of self-help and the increasing availability of peer support over the Internet is also changing the face of how families journey through grief.

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HFA’s 14th Annual National Bereavement Teleconference, Living With Grief: Before and After the Death

HFA’s 14^th annual National Bereavement Teleconference, Living With Grief: Before and After the Death, will be broadcast Thursday, March 22, 2007 from 1:30--4:00pm. This teleconference, as well as the accompanying book, will explore the most current theoretical perspectives on loss and grief as experienced by persons throughout a life-limiting illness and by survivors after the death. A particular focus will be paid to areas where understandings of grief have been challenged. The program will be useful to a range of professionals who counsel persons who are bereaved including psychologists, counselors, clergy, social workers, nurses and other health care workers, and funeral directors, as well as educators, teachers and school-based personnel. The information will also be helpful to individuals who offer education on loss, grief, dying or death.

A panel of experts will examine and discuss the following topics:

• Anticipatory grief and anticipatory mourning: approaches that professional caregivers can use to assist patients and families struggling with loss in life-threatening illness;
• Strategies and interventional approaches that professional caregivers can use at the moment of death and in funeral rituals to help survivors cope with loss;
• Ways that our understandings of grief have changed over the last 20 years and how changes have influenced practice;
• Research on the effectiveness of grief interventions;
• The current debate over a new DSM diagnostic category for complicated grief; and
• Current research and theory on grief reactions of professional caregivers, and ways that individuals and organizations can effectively support grieving staff and volunteers.

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What’s New @HFA

For Living With Grief: Before and After the Death, Hospice Foundation of America will be accepting artwork from hospices nationwide. HFA will choose one piece of artwork to be displayed as a cover image for our 2007 Living With Grief^® companion book. Several other pieces of artwork will also be chosen to be displayed on our website at www.hospicefoundation.org and may be used as visual images in the 2007 teleconference and teleconference materials. If your hospice or organization runs art therapy programs or other supportive grief programs where grief-related artwork is produced, we welcome you to submit artwork for consideration.

You may send artwork in its original form or electronically. If you are submitting an image electronically, please send jpeg, gif, eps or tiff files only. All 3-D images must be sent electronically.

Each artist (or guardian) will need to sign the release form (PDF) if they wish for their work to be considered for display on our website or book cover. There will be a small honorarium provided to the organization of the chosen book cover image. This honorarium is intended to help support the grief program. Both the artist and the grief program will be credited in all cases in which the artwork is used.
Please send all electronic images to telecon@hospicefoundation.org and all artwork via mail to:
Hospice Foundation of America, Attn: Grief-Related Artwork
1621 Connecticut Ave. NW. Suite 300
Washington, DC 20009

If sending images electronically, please fax the release form to (202) 638-5312. The deadline for HFA to receive images is December 1, 2006. Please send only those images that you do not wish to keep; HFA will not be able to return any artwork.

Is your hospice listed in the newest online hospice directory, www.hospicedirectory.org? Hundreds of hospices have taken advantage of free registration and are now members of HospiceDirectory.org, HFA's new hospice information website. Register your hospice by September 15, 2006, and you can receive either a free copy of our award-winning Living With Grief^® teleconference companion book Caregiving and Loss, or 50 copies of one Special Issues Journeys, a bereavement newsletter: Newly Bereaved, Anniversary, Holiday, Adolescent or Helping Young People. This is our way of saying thanks for the great work you do and thank you for joining HospiceDirectory.org. For more information on free registration and membership, contact hdadmin@hospicefoundation.org / toll free: 1-800-868-5171.

HFA received many questions via phone during the live teleconference broadcast in April that could not be answered on the air. The panelists have contributed a Questions and Answers section to HFA’s website. The Question and Answer feature is part of a larger set of resources on Pain Management and other past teleconference topics; this section of HFA’s website allows ongoing access to education and resources on a wide range of subjects.

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Pain Management at the End of Life

The 2 ½ hour DVD of the “Pain Management at the End of Life: Bridging the Gap Between Knowledge and Practice” teleconference is now available. Please call 800-854-3402 or order online. The edited 1-hour version will be available later this month.

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Upcoming Conferences and Educational Opportunities

The 16th International Congress on Care of the Terminally Ill will take place September 26-29 at the Palais des Congrès in Montréal, Canada. Founded by Dr. Balfour Mount in 1976 and presented by the Palliative Care Division of the Departments of Oncology and Medicine of McGill University, this biennial Congress has grown to become one of the premier international events in palliative care and is widely recognized for its academic quality. Bringing together approximately 1200 participants from all over the world, the event provides an opportunity to review and share the latest developments in research as well as perspectives on end-of-life care from different cultures, spiritual traditions, and professions. The four-day program, developed by a McGill University Health Centre based scientific committee, includes plenaries by leaders in the field and over 75 workshops. For more information, please visit the website or call 514-481-7408, ext. 227.

Building Bridges: Interdisciplinary Paths to Palliative & End-of-Life Care for People with Diverse Conditions (Cancer, Dementia, and Heart Disease), sponsored by University of South Florida Health, will take place October 27-28 in Tampa, Florida. Building Bridges is for researchers, clinicians and providers interested in state-of-the-art research and practice in end-of-life care, especially as it relates to persons with end-stage heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and other forms of dementia. The conference will feature an introduction by J. Donald Schumacher, President and CEO of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, on the challenges and progress made in caring for people with diverse conditions at the end of life, and will include notes by Kathleen Egan, VP, The Hospice Institute of the Florida Suncoast.

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This newsletter is sent to more than 6,500 subscribers on the 2nd Wednesday of every month to keep you informed of what is happening in the fields of hospice, grief and bereavement, and caregiving, as well as what's new at HFA.  We encourage you to forward this e-newsletter to an interest colleague or friend. To subscribe, go to HFA's E-Newsletter sign-up page.

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This newsletter is published by Hospice Foundation of America
David Abrams, President and CEO
http://www.hospicefoundation.org/
Board of Directors: Thomas E. Bryant, MD, JD; Myra MacPherson; Priscilla Perry; Patricia Spulak; Thomas Spulak
© Hospice Foundation of America 2006