Hospice Foundation of America
E-Newsletter
Volume 8, Issue 6
June 2008
http://www.hospicefoundation.org
June 2008
In this issue:
- Focus on: Diversity and End-of-Life Care
- What's New @ HFA
- What's New @ HFA's Hospice and Caregiving Blog
- Upcoming Conferences and Educational Opportunities
Message from David Abrams, President
HFA is pleased to announce that our 16th annual National Bereavement Teleconference "Diversity and End-of-Life Care" will be broadcast Wednesday, April 29, 2009, from 1:30p-4p ET. The program will focus on ways of understanding diversity and how cultural histories, traditions and beliefs can affect end of life care. Site Coordinator Registration will begin in late September.
Focus on: Diversity and End-of-Life Care
In May 2007, the US Census Bureau released information about the growth of minority populations in the United States. "About one in three U.S. residents is a minority," said Census Bureau Director Louis Kincannon. "To put this into perspective, there are more minorities in this country today than there were people in the United States in 1910. In fact, the minority population in the U.S. is larger than the total population of all but 11 countries."
Hospices and other organizations that care for people at the end of life are gaining an increasing awareness of the need to learn more about incorporating cultural competency into their care. HFA's 16th annual National Bereavement Teleconference will focus on Diversity and End-of-Life Care. The program, which will be broadcast Wednesday, April 29, will look at how diversity may influence end-of-life decision making, and the impact that culture may have at the time of death and during bereavement. One of the goals of the teleconference is to increase sensitivity by helping professionals acknowledge how their own cultural values and assumptions influence the delivery of care. The program will include a special examination of hospice care and diversity, including how hospices are reaching out to diverse groups and incorporating traditional practices and alternative therapies. The program will also discuss the challenges that may occur when culture considerations may cause ethical concerns or moral distress.
HFA's new book, Living with Grief: Children and Adolescents, is now available for purchase. The book is written by experts and examines child and adolescent grief in a variety of situations. Parental loss, sibling loss, and loss of a friend are each addressed in their own chapters. Other chapters examine play therapy, protocols for schools, use of the Internet as a coping tool, and the recommendations for reading for children and adolescents. Contributors include Kenneth Doka (editor), Charles Corr, Nancy Hogan, Bruce Jennings, Donna Schuurman and J. William Worden. See a full Table of Contents. The book is available for purchase online for $34.95.
HFA's recent National Bereavement Teleconference, Living With Grief: Children and Adolescents, is now available on DVD. These DVDs make excellent training tools as well as a resource for community organizations interested in helping children cope with grief and loss. The full-length program costs $25 and can be ordered here.
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 recent postings:
- CMS Highlights Rights of Medicare Hospice Patients in Press Release
- Racial and Regional Disparities in Health Care Getting More Attention
- Update: Change in Language Provisions in the New CMS Hospice Conditions of Participation
- The Role of Grief Counseling - Revisited
Upcoming Conferences and Educational Opportunities
On June 25, CMS will present a satellite broadcast on the "Health Implications of Caregiving." The presentations and discussion following will provide caregivers and caregiver agencies/organizations information on how caregiving impacts health.
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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