Volunteers bringing compassion to end of life care

North County Hospice will offer volunteer training starting on
March 16 for residents who want to serve the community by
participating in compassionate end of life care.
“Our mission statement and philosophy is that we want to provide
compassionate, personalized hospice care and resources for people
in need of our service—and that we’re rooted in community. We have
a strong philosophy about being part of the community in which we
serve, and in partnership with the community we serve,” said
volunteer manager Nina Arbour,
The nine-week, 35-hour training session will introduce
volunteers to the hospice philosophy.
“It’s helping somebody to leave the world in peace,” explained
Alison Leras, volunteer coordinator. “It’s not curative, it’s
comfort—comfort not just physically, but we also support the
patients emotionally and spiritually. We support the families in
that way as well.”
Hospice services are provided at no cost to families and
patients. North County Hospice, which opened one year ago, receives
reimbursement from Medicare and funding from private donors as well
as two thrift stores in Santa Rosa and Petaluma.
While compassion and comfort are integral to the hospice
philosophy, North County Hospice also strives to integrate all of
the aspects of end-of-life care under one roof.
“Hospices are a team approach to care,” Arbour explained. “It’s
a multidisciplinary approach of doctors, nurses, social workers,
chaplains, home health aides, and volunteers. We all offer services
to the patients and their family members to ease this time of
life.”
Volunteers, Arbour noted, have a particularly important role in
the hospice model.
“Volunteers bring a unique aspect to a health care services that
says to people over and over again that they are loved and they are
visible, even if they’re at the end of their life,” Arbour said.
“The volunteers can bring something really lovely and simple like
sitting by the bedside and reading to somebody or helping them
write letters to the people they love.”
To prepare volunteers for this important role, the training
session provides lessons on family dynamics, understanding loss,
communication and listening, grief cycles, and spirituality. After
completing the course, volunteers are equipped to serve in the
capacity of hospice caregiver or grief support volunteer.
While there are no pre-requisites for taking the training
course, many of the volunteers received comfort and care from
hospice in their own time of need, and are now determined to give
back to the community.
Pat Guy is a volunteer who leads a child loss support group. She
was exposed to hospice both through caring for her mother, who had
Alzheimer’s, and the loss of her daughter. As a volunteer, Guy
realized that her experiences could empower the parents in the
child loss support group: showing them someone who had pushed past
the immediacy of grief but who still kept her child close to her
heart.
“I wanted the people we were with to look at me and realize yes,
I had lost a child—and it will never be the same, and it will
always be a hole in my heart, but I have moved ahead and found joy
in other things,” Guy said. “I think for me, it was the direction
my daughter would have liked to see me go. And she would be happy
to see me doing it.”
For Guy, volunteering offers an opportunity to honor her
daughter’s life, while nurturing others and being nurtured in turn
by other volunteers and staff. She only wishes that more people
knew about hospice care—and that they’d turn to North County
Hospice sooner rather than later. The hospice offers consultation
on medication management and medical directives and, Guy said,
turning to hospice earlier better prepares families and patients
for end of life.
Guy also noted that the volunteer training was invaluable in
preparing her for her new role.
“It’s funny to say, but I loved going, I loved the things I
learned. Everybody who was there was there because they wanted to
be,” Guy said of the training.
“The course is designed to help people immerse themselves in
beliefs and attitudes related to death, dying, grief, and loss.
It’s a life’s training. It reminds us that life is short, it
matters what we do, it matters who we love and who loves us. It’s
really designed from the standpoint that we’re all in this
together, none of us is going to escape alive, and what can we
learn about ourselves that can help us approach others in a
positive way,” Arbour said.
North County Hospice is seeking volunteers of all types, from
those who would be comfortable providing hospice care or grief
support, to those who could help with clerical tasks like data
entry.
Interested volunteers are encouraged to call Nina at 431-1135
prior to enrolling in the nine-week training course starting on
March 16.
Lynda Hopkins can be reached at Ly***@hb*****.com.