2011 HCI Annual Report - Hospice Caring

Our Unique Volunteer Training
Hospice Caring is shaped around its distinctive
core values—strength, gentleness, empathy,
kindness, compassion, respect, selflessness,
friendship, honor, fortitude, advocacy,
acceptance, love, and belief in others. We carry
these values throughout all of our programs,
and instill them within our unique volunteer
training.
During our three-day volunteer training, offered
four times each year, we share the compassionate
gift of “presence”—to be with the patient and/
or the family as a friend or an advocate, and
with kindness and gentleness. Training sessions
are formed around topics that relate specifically
to areas in which the volunteer may find him/
herself involved, those being: death and dying,
wills and durable power of attorney, physical
aspects and the volunteer, communication,
spectrum of caring, and taking care of oneself.
Throughout the training, professional speakers
and a dedicated staff make our training a
profound and unique training experience.
After the training, volunteers may choose the
support services they wish to provide—caregiving,
adult bereavement facilitation, and/or
children’s bereavement facilitation (including
Good Grief Clubs, After-School Grief Relief,
and Camp Caring). These programs are also
presented and discussed during training, as well
as a session on experiential learning.
For all of our programs, we carefully match
the needs of the patients and families, the
facilitators, and the Camp personnel with the
appropriate volunteers.
VOlunTEErS
“
“For me, Hospice Caring training has been a journey
of personal discovery, an informative process, and a
deeply enriching and rewarding experience.
– Volunteer caregiver
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