Hospice Foundation of America
E-Newsletter
Volume 8, Issue 4
April 2008
http://www.hospicefoundation.org
April 2008
In this issue:
- Focus on: Profile of Pamela Gabbay, Program Director, Mourning Star Center
- What's New @ HFA
- What's New @ HFA's Hospice and Caregiving Blog
- Living With Grief: Children and Adolescents
- Upcoming Conferences and Educational Opportunities
Message from David Abrams, President
One week from today HFA will air its 15th annual National Bereavement Teleconference, Living With Grief®: Children and Adolescents. In 1993 we were pleased to have 500 sites join us for our first program; this Wednesday April 16 more than 1200 communities will be tuning in live for what has become an important educational event across the country.
If you haven't done so already, we encourage you to plan to attend a site in your area. Locate the closest site here. This month HFA begins what will be on ongoing series of Profiles, featuring people across the country who have chosen to work in the fields of hospice, grief and loss. Watch for more of these stories in the months to come.
Focus on: Profile of Pamela Gabbay, Program Director, Mourning Star Center
Today we introduce you to Pamela Gabbay, Program Director of the Mourning Star Center for grieving children, a community service program of the Visiting Nurse Association of the Inland Counties. Like many of you who support those who grieve, Ms. Gabbay feels a true calling and connection to this important work. You'll get a chance to learn more about Ms. Gabbay and others like her in the teleconference broadcast next week.
HFA has two new special issues of Journeys, a newsletter to help in bereavement. The first new special issue, "Caregiving and Hospice," addresses choosing hospice, the challenges of facing loss, opportunities for reminiscence, and self-care for caregivers. Another special issue, "Spring Holidays," focuses on grief surrounding holidays such as Mother's Day, Easter and Passover, Father's Day and graduation.
HFA and the Hospice Education Network (HEN) have launched a new continuing education collaborative making HFA's edited teleconference programs available to hospices and others who work in grief-related fields. Certified for one-hour of continuing education credit for more than 16 professional boards, HFA's edited Living with Grief programs (11 courses total) are now available via streaming video to professionals and volunteers who are interested in furthering their education. HEN offers one year subscriptions to individual Living with Grief programs or a special discount for all eleven programs. The one, low, affordable subscription price includes 24/7 access to the program(s) for a hospice or other group's entire staff and volunteers as well as HEN's administrative tools that provide tracking, monitoring and documentation resources. In addition, the subscription price includes continuing education credits for nurses, social workers, funeral service workers and additional professional boards. For more information, go to ww.hospiceonline.com or contact info@hospiceonline.com or call 508-778-0008.
HFA is now making individual book chapters available for online purchase.
The chapters are available in PDFs for a low cost of $2.50 each and may be downloaded
to your home or office computer. We have put chapters from the last three books
online: Living with Grief: Before and After the Death (2007); Living with Grief:
Pain Management at the End of Life (2006), and Living with Grief: Ethical Dilemmas
at the End of Life (2005). You can read descriptions of each chapter before purchasing.
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 most recent postings:
- Supporting Children's Grief
- Pitting Hospice Against Palliative Care Misleading
- Julia's Life in Pictures
Living With Grief: Children and Adolescents
HFA's 15th annual National Bereavement Teleconference, Living With Grief: Children and Adolescents, will be broadcast Wednesday, April 16. HFA's 2008 Teleconference will focus on the experience of grieving children and adolescents and the ways that hospice professionals, teachers and school administrators, grief counselors, funeral directors, and parents can best support these populations as they cope with loss and grief. The program and newly published book will focus on the most current theories and practices in this area, and as always will combine academic research with hands-on ideas for use in hospice support groups and other settings.
Please note: On April 16th, HFA's Washington office will be staffed from 9 am until noon. It will re-open from 5pm-6pm that evening, and will resume regular business hours on April 17th at 8:30am.
This year veteran Site Coordinators and returning audience members will notice a significant format change to the Living with Grief program. The program will be the same length but will have two segments instead of the usual four. Each panelist in that segment will remain for the entirety of the 70-minute segment, allowing for more time to thoroughly discuss the topics. As we did last year, viewer questions submitted before the teleconference will be incorporated into the live program. Why did HFA make these changes? We listened to site coordinators and viewers, who answered our post-teleconference surveys. While the program receives high marks year after year, many viewers have told us that they would appreciate an opportunity to hear panelists in more depth. We hope the extended discussion time will improve the program.
HFA is grateful to the organizations who help sponsor the teleconference, especially the Foundation for End-of-Life Care, a not-for-profit organization established by VITAS Healthcare Corporation, was created to improve end-of-life care for individual patients and their families, while supporting fundamental societal change.
Hospice Foundation of America is also grateful for the cooperation of:
- The Adventist Communications Network
- The Association for Death Education and Counseling
- The Compassionate Friends
- Dignity Memorial Funeral, Cremation, and Cemetery Services
- The National Association of Social Workers
- Department of Veteran Affairs Employee Education System
Upcoming Conferences and Educational Opportunities
April 16, 2008 has been designated as National Healthcare Decisions Day. The National Healthcare Decisions Day Initiative is a collaborative effort of national, state and community organizations committed to ensuring that all adults with decision-making capacity in the United States have the information and opportunity to communicate and document their healthcare decisions.
Children's Hospice International has issued a Call for Abstracts for its 19th World Congress in San Francisco, November 16 - 19. This year the Congress' theme is: Innovations in Pediatric Palliative Care: From Policy to Bedside and Beyond! Additional Congress information can be found here.
The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, based in Baltimore, announced a new grants programs aimed at supporting caregivers of the elderly. The Foundation plans to award 12 to 20 grants ranging from $300,000 to $900,000 to nonprofit community groups, who will also need to provide a local match. Non-profit 501(c)(3) organizations, including aging and human service agencies, faith-based and other community-based organizations, tribal organizations, and units of local government are encouraged to apply. For more information, see their website.
This newsletter is sent to more than 7,600 subscribers 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. Privacy Statement: In no case will we share e-mail addresses. See the full text of HFA's Privacy Policy.
This newsletter is published by Hospice Foundation of America
David Abrams, President; Amy Tucci, CEO
http://www.hospicefoundation.org
Board of Directors: Thomas Spulak, Chair; David Abrams; Thomas E. Bryant, MD, JD;
Myra MacPherson; Priscilla Perry, Vice Chair; Patricia Spulak
© Hospice Foundation of America 2008
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