Hospice Foundation of America
E-Newsletter
Volume 7, Issue 10
October 2007
http://www.hospicefoundation.org
October 2007
- Message from David Abrams, President/CEO
- Focus on: Hospice and Caregiving Blog
- Hospice and Family Caregiver Resources
- Living With Grief: Children and Adolescents
- Host a Downlink Site!
- Call for 2008 LWG Book Cover Art
- What’s New@ HFA
- Upcoming Conferences and Educational Opportunities
Message from David Abrams, President/CEO
The issues of hospice and caregiving are at the heart of the work of HFA (and likely yours), so it seems appropriate that in November, we will celebrate both National Hospice Month and National Family Caregivers Month. These monthly designations allow your organization a well-deserved opportunity to recognize the invaluable work you do each day and to honor those who cope with caregiving and end-of-life issues in their own lives.
We’ve listed some excellent resources below to help you plan ahead, including HFA’s newest resource, The Hospice and Caregiving Blog.
Focus on: Hospice and Caregiving Blog
Fifteen years ago, Hospice Foundation of America launched its National Bereavement Teleconference, which has become the largest end-of-life annual educational event of its kind. The teleconference answered an unmet challenge for many hospices by providing cost-effective education and resources at a one-stop shop for professionals, volunteers, and community members.
This month, HFA unveils its Hospice and Caregiving Blog, once again with the goal of gathering and disseminating 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. Each day, HFA’s staff gathers the latest news about various aspects end-of-life care and caregiving, reviews it for relevancy, and posts it to our blog. News is supplemented by tips from experts, such as myths about child grief and supporting someone who is dying, that can be used by professionals and caregivers alike. Soon, we’ll add the perspectives of HFA guest bloggers--professionals, volunteers, and caregivers--who will share their experiences. Whether it’s a personal story that will inspire a family to consider hospice, useful information that will help a caregiver with his or her duties, or a story about grief and kids that would be useful to professionals or loved ones, we hope to have you find it on HFA’s Hospice and Caregiving Blog.
Hospice and Family Caregiver Resources
Think about how your organization can reach out to your community during National Hospice Month! HFA has some excellent resources that you can use to shatter myths about hospice care, and to promote the concept of hospice in your area.
National Family Caregivers Month (NFC Month) is designated as a time every year to thank, support, educate and celebrate more than 50 million family caregivers across the country currently providing an estimated $306 billion in "free" caregiving services. This year NFC Month will focus on family caregivers speaking up for their rights. The National Family Caregivers Association has a number of materials online.
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, 2008. 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.
The teleconference will be moderated again by Frank Sesno, an Emmy-award winning journalist, special correspondent with CNN and a faculty member George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs. Panelists will include:
- Kenneth J. Doka, PhD, MDiv, Professor of Gerontology at the graduate school of The College of New Rochelle and Senior Bereavement Consultant to HFANancy Hogan, PhD, RN, FAAN, distinguished professor and associate dean for research at Loyola University--ChicagoRita Milburn-Dobson, MA, RNC, FT, founder of Precious Gems Supportive Services (PGSS)Laura Olague, M.Ed., CT, executive director and co-founder of the Children’s Grief Center of El PasoStacy Orloff, EdD, vice president of Palliative Care and Community Programs of the Hospices of the Florida Suncoast
- J. William Worden, PhD, ABPP, co-principal investigator for Harvard's Child Bereavement Study, based at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Site Coordinator Registration has begun! The Site Coordinator registration form is available now online. This year, you can register and pay the materials fee online with a credit card. If you want to register by mail you may download the application here (PDF) mail it to us with a check, money order, or fax with credit card information to our Washington, DC address.
After we receive your registration and materials payment (still $25 per downlink site if you register early), you will receive a detailed Site Coordinator’s Manual in the mail and a password to access teleconference materials on our website.
If you haven’t done so before, HFA encourages you to consider hosting a downlink site for the 2008 teleconference. Read some FAQs about the teleconference to learn about the benefits and the technical requirements of hosting. Please contact us at telecon@hospicefoundation.org if you have any questions or need more information.
Call for 2008 LWG Book Cover Art
“It is this ability of art to serve as a witness to our pain, to show the depths and profundity of our lives, that gives it as much of its therapeutic power as ridding the body of uncomfortable feelings or illuminating our darkest fears.” (from Virginia Lynn Fry, “Part of Me Died Too”, in HFA’s Living With Grief: Children, Adolescents and Loss)
Last year, we featured artwork, submitted by Harry Hynes Memorial Hospice, on the cover of our teleconference book. Receiving art for the cover was so rewarding, and the response from our readers so positive, we’re starting the process again for our 2008 book. If you work with children or adolescents, or have colleagues who do so, please look over the submission information below. We look forward to seeing the wonderful work that you do in helping children and adolescents cope with grief and loss.
HFA is calling for submissions of grief-related artwork by children and adolescents. One piece of artwork will be selected as the cover image for HFA's 2008 book, Living With Grief: Children and Adolescents. Artwork must be the original work of a child or adolescent under the age of 21 and must be received by HFA by November 30, 2007. There will be a $500 honorarium provided to the artist whose work is selected for the book and a $250 honorarium provided, if applicable, to the hospice, school, or other organization that facilitated the artist’s work.
View more information on the submission process.
Subscribers to Journeys--A Newsletter to Help in Bereavement, should notice a new fresh look and format. The content is as helpful as ever, but the newsletter is now designed in a more contemporary, easy-to-read style. The newly designed Holiday Journeys Issue is available for 20% off the regular price until December 1. The Holiday Issue is a great way to let your bereavement clients know you're thinking of them this holiday season. To order via mail, print and return this order form (PDF). You may also fax the order form to 202-638-5312. Orders must be placed in quantities of 25. All other redesigned special issues -- Anniversary, Newly Bereaved, For Kids by Kids, Understanding Support Groups and Helping Young People -- will be available after October 15th. Order here.
Upcoming Conferences and Educational Opportunities
The International Death, Grief and Bereavement Conference has put out a call for Papers. The theme of the conference, to be held June 1-4, 2008, is “Sudden and Traumatic Death;” deadline for submission is November 1. Read more information here.
FRONTLINE's The Undertaking, to be broadcast October 30 on PBS, enters the world of Thomas Lynch, a writer, poet and undertaker whose family for three generations has cared for both the living and the dead in a small Michigan town. Check here for local listings.
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