HFA's E-Newsletter - January 2011
Volume 11, Issue 1
In this issue:
- Message from Amy Tucci, President and CEO
- Focus on: Hospice Nursing
- Living With Grief 2011
- The Hospice Information Center
- Bonus Features for the Living With Grief 2011 Program?
- What's New @ HFA's Hospice and Caregiving Blog
- Upcoming Conferences and Educational Opportunities
Message from Amy Tucci, President and CEO
Hospice Foundation of America this week salutes the life of Sargent Shriver, the man who started the Peace Corps in the Kennedy Administration and began Head Start. He died on Tuesday, leaving behind a legacy of accomplishment that more often than not focused on those who needed help. Like his daughter Maria Shriver, who recently recorded her perspectives on grief for a new HFA video, Mr. Shriver was generous with his time when he thought it would help others. His participation in HFA's 2004 Living with Grief® program on Alzheimer's disease was poignant; he had recently been diagnosed with the disease and spoke about writing an open letter to his friends and colleagues to let them know the news (HFA's former President, David Abrams, shares a recollection of Mr. Shriver's Living with Grief® participation on the Hospice and Caregiving blog.) Thank you Sargent Shriver for the contribution you made to Hospice Foundation of America and the many other great contributions you made during your distinguished life.
Focus on: Hospice Nursing
A core member of any hospice team is the hospice nurse. This month we speak with Jennifer Carlson, RN CHPN, Director of Operations for Amedisys Hospice Services. Ms. Carlson talks about her more than 20 years in nursing; her experiences serving patients in both metropolitan and more rural areas; and how issues of spirituality intersect with a nurse's work with the dying. She also discusses some of the common questions that she gets about hospice care, both in her community and as a consultant to HFA's Hospice Information Center. Even with the daily challenges that this work brings, she sums it up well when she states that, "A hospice nurse's mission comes with many tangible and intangible rewards that make it all worthwhile."
Living With Grief 2011
Spirituality and End-of-Life Care will discuss the differences and relationship between spirituality and religion, while also addressing spirituality during illness, death and grief; spiritual assessment and empowerment, and life review. The program will feature a distinguished panel of experts, including:
- Kenneth J. Doka, PhD, MDiv, Professor of Gerontology at The College of New Rochelle
- Gary S. Fink, DMin, Chaplain and Dementia Project Coordinator at Montgomery Hospice, and Adjunct Faculty at Hood College Graduate School
- Carolyn Jacobs, PhD, MSW, Dean and Elizabeth Marting Treuhaft Professor at Smith College, School for Social Work
- Betty Kramer, PhD, MSSW, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Social Work
- Reinette Powers Murray, MSN, CNS, RN, Consultant for The Peaceful Journey End-of-Life Process program and certified as a Train-the-Trainer for End-of-Life Nursing Education (ELNEC)
- Martha Rutland, DMin, BCC, ACPE, Director of Clinical Pastoral Education at VITAS Innovative Hospice Care
For the first time, HFA's Living with Grief® educational program, Spirituality and End-of-Life Care will be distributed on DVD. Instead of asking your organization to commit to participating in one live broadcast of the program, the DVD gives you the flexibility to schedule your event at a time most convenient to your audience, and allows you the additional opportunity to repeat the program throughout the year. The program will also be available at 1:30 p.m. Eastern time on April 13 as a webcast for registered sites. However, all sites will receive a DVD of the program. The program can be shown beginning April 13, 2011.
Bonus Features for Living With Grief 2011
New educational opportunities are included in the low cost of registering:
- An option for your audience to speak with several panel members who will be available by telephone on April 13. Four call-in times are available for your organization to spend up to an hour with three of Hospice Foundation of America's Spirituality and End-of-Life Care panel members! Use this opportunity for your local discussion (required for CE credit), or simply use this as an opportunity to learn more from the experts, share reactions with other sites, and have your audience questions answered. Approximately 12 sites will be on each conference call. You must be registered for the program to request a slot and slots are available in the order they are requested. Preference, therefore, will be given to sites that register early. If demand exceeds available slots, HFA will consider adding additional call-in times. For more info, contact Kristen Baker, Manager of Continuing Education at kbaker@hospicefoundation.org, or contact us at 800-854-3402. Space is limited, so reserve your time today!
- A bonus package that will include three webinars in May, June and July, allowing audiences to explore specific topics in more detail, including: Leaving Legacies-- Spiritual Meaning Making at the End-of-Life, including Reminiscence and Life Review, Dignity Enhancement Therapies, Living Eulogies and Other Meaning-Making Approaches; and The Dark Night of the Soul: Assisting Clients Coping with Spiritual Distress at the End-of-Life. Presenters for the webinars, which will be moderated by Kenneth Doka, will include many of the panelists from the 2011 program, as well as other experts in the field such as Robert Washington, PhD, MDiv, James Magee, PhD and Cathy O'Keefe, M.Ed. Continuing Education Credits will be available at no cost for these webinars.Back to top
The Hospice Information Center
Aging and death don't discriminate. Whether someone is heterosexual, gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, everyone grows older. The Hospice Foundation of America (HFA) has added a new resource, "Aging and End-of-Life Challenges in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Community," to the Hospice Information Center. This free online webinar, written by Kimberly Acquaviva, PhD, MSW, will help your organization and staff better serve older LGBT adults and their loved ones who are coping with progressive illness, loss and grief. In addition to the program, additional resource lists and Fact Sheets can be downloaded for sharing with staff, students, and community members. Free Continuing Education credits are available for a wide range of professionals including nurses and social workers.
Hospice Foundation of America (HFA)'s Hospice Information Center offers a range of online resources for families, friends and professionals. This centralized resource is funded by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and can be found on HFA's website at http://www.hospicefoundation.org/infocenter.
What’s New @ HFA’s Hospice and Caregiving Blog
HFA's Hospice and Caregiving Blog gathers and disseminates information useful to professionals and consumers from a single destination. Our goals are to inform, offer support, and generate online comments about important end-of life issues. Read some of the blog's recent postings:
- Sargent Shriver - A Recollection
- Awards Honoring Physician Excellence in End-of-Life Care Announced
- Cultural Perspectives: Caring for the Dead
Subscribe to the Hospice and Caregiving blog feed and follow HFA on Twitter.
Upcoming Conferences and Educational Opportunities
The University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse will hold its annual International Death, Grief and Bereavement Conference on June 6-8, 2011, focusing on Men and Grief. Conference topics will include: Spousal loss/loss of child; bereavement-like losses (e.g. job, identity, marriage etc); Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the war; and gender differences and/or similarities in grieving. For more information, go to www.uwlax.edu/conted/dgb
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