October 5, 2017
Moore Mission Moments - The Watershed Group

TO GIVE IS TO RECIEVE

by Patti Moore

 

When I talk with my clients lately, it seems nearly everyone has been grappling with a decrease in census.  Are people just not dying as frequently as in the past? Are other providers stepping up to offer similar types of care thus sidestepping hospice or is it some other mysterious thing that is happening?!

 

We pursue referrals in all kinds of ways; we pass out brochures at doctor’s offices, assisted living communities, and senior centers; we give logo pens to discharge planners who we hope will call us looking for hospice care. We may pay search engines to put our ads above other results, when people go online to search phrases like “hospice near me”. These are all solid strategies – but do they go far enough?

           

Part of the challenge in engaging the community is that we’re balkanized in the public imagination because of the function we serve.  It’s not news that people are by and large afraid of death – and though we as hospice providers know that our work is as much or more about living well at the end of life than it is about dying, that’s not an idea most people can wrap their heads around. The fact is, they don’t usually get to know us until they need us – and that needs to change.

 

The solution? Get proactive, get out into the community – and offer them something they want and/or need.

  • Educate the Consumer: Because of what we do, we’re uniquely qualified to present talks, seminars, or roundtables on topics like: What to Expect When You’re Grieving; How Children Process Grief; When Is It Time For Hospice?; Your Rights in End of Life Care; Caring for the Care-Giver; Making Arrangements; Estate Planning, Wills and Funerals; 7 Documents You Need To Complete Before You Die; Caring For Your Loved One at the End of Life.
  • Take it to the Library: Public Libraries are always looking for educational, free programs of interest to the public, and have meeting or presentation rooms in which you can speak. Your Chamber of Commerce and local service organizations like the Kiwanis’ Club, Rotary, etc. are also great venues for these kinds of talks. Make sure you coordinate with the Library to publicize the talk well ahead of time in local media outlets. Prepare a press release, and get pictures (with permissions) of the presentations for use in future publicity and on your website.
  • Expand Your Offerings: Hospices are offering a wide variety of support groups, many of them peer-led or by local clergy volunteering their time. Among them are regular meetings for cancer survivors, groups for bereaved parents or adult siblings, caregiver’s groups, and widows and widowers groups. What does your community need?
  • Partner With High Schools: When National Merit Scholar candidates or scholarship applicants are looking for opportunities to do volunteer hours, make sure their school counselors know about opportunities to volunteer in hospice. They don’t have to work with patients; they can bake cookies, play music, plant flowers, or organize art shows, etc. Many private schools require volunteer hours of their students, too. Create a brochure just for this audience. Their parents will thank you – and remember you.
  • Partner With Scouts: Eagle Scouts need public service projects to win their rank, and your non-profit hospice offers those opportunities. Often these projects are centered on building; does your thrift store need new shelves? Does your garden need benches or flower boxes? Does your summer camp need a play-scape? One enterprising Girl Scout collected mp3 players and loaded them up with music for hospice patients. These success stories get space in local media. Make sure your community paper, website, etc. hears yours.

 We can simply do our jobs and wait for the community to remember us – or we can look for ways to expand our outreach and provide extra value to our community. Which approach do you think will reap more goodwill – and referrals?

 

 Image result for images of giving and receiving 

 
WORTH READING/ WORTH WATCHING:

Cookie-cutter funerals are out. These days, a more personalized exit is the likely scenario:

“Boomers want to do things different. It’s all about making funeral arrangements a part of our lives,” said Michelle Cromer, author of Exit Strategy, which explores more than a dozen unique farewells.

           

For instance, Eternal Reefs mixes ashes into an environmentally-safe, ball-shaped concrete “memorial reef” placed in the ocean to create a new marine habitat. Two years before her death, Cécile Lane told her husband, Edgar, and their six children that she wanted her ashes placed into one of the reef balls. During the casting, daughter Vivian Sarna and her father decorated Cécile’s memorial with shells and Lane inscribed his name.

         

“She loved the ocean and wanted to look at the fishes for eternity,” Sarna recalled. “Of course, Mom also joked that when Dad died he could be submerged nearby but not next to a cute blonde reef ball.”

 

Meet The Funeral Celebrant Who Specializes In Difficult Deaths: “Hilary Ord does not count her funerals.  People are not numbers, she says. Even the office of Births, Deaths and Marriages can't say how many services she has conducted in nearly 20 years as an independent celebrant.  But today she learned new things. She's less than an hour back from conducting the funeral of a young woman - in the relatively unconventional setting of a West Auckland vineyard - and the experience is still with her.

           

"It was an absolute fitting tribute to the person who had passed away," she says. "And very different to what I have done before, in the way we rolled it out. Which is what people are doing more and more now. They're thinking more about what that person would have wanted.”

 

 
 
CLIENT SUCCESS STORIES:

Fundraisers for a good cause are ALWAYS in season – and nobody’s better at hosting them than our clients!

 

Family Hospice and Palliative Care of Pittsburg’s Memorial Boat Cruise Saturday, Sept. 23, 2017, 10am - Noon on Gateway Clipper Fleet  The Memorial Boat Cruise will celebrate the past lives of family and friends.  We will board the ship at 9:30 am and set sail on our rivers at 10:00 am.

All of the monies raised are allocated to patient and family services."

 

Hospice of the Chesapeake’s 15th Annual Golf Tournament is coming up October 5th at Queenstown Harbor.

 

Agrace Hospice opens Madison area's first stand-alone grief support center.

“The center will accommodate a growing demand for grief support, including from families whose loved ones, like Evanson, didn’t receive hospice care. Much of the new space is designed for children.

           

Agrace, like other hospice providers, has long offered grief support groups and individual grief sessions. But demand was outpacing space available, and some people didn’t want to go to Agrace’s main center in Fitchburg for grief support because their loved ones died there or generally because it can evoke death, said Cheri Milton, a grief specialist at Agrace.”

 

What’s your hospice doing to create alliances and awareness in your community? I’d love to hear about it!  Send your stories, press releases, and announcements to: [email protected]

 
 
MEET PATTI:

My oh my, what a busy fall!  I'll be working in Michigan and Florida for the next 2 weeks as well as attending the National Partnership for Hospice Innovation Summit in Dallas next week.  Looking forward to seeing colleagues from more than 40 not for profit hospices gather to discuss best practices, models of care and the future of hospice in America.

 

Enjoy this wonderful season!

 
A MOMENT OF PEACE:
Pause, take a breath, smile and enjoy the Roseate Spoonbills flying past RiverCove Retreat Center
 
 
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The Watershed Group 5745 SW 75th St #323 Gainsville, Florida 32608 United States (352) 495-2800