Even during a public health emergency, hospice and palliative care professionals rise to the challenge of providing compassionate, person-centered care in the community. Kandice Dickinson, Director of Public Relations for Heart ‘n Home Hospice, shares a creative way they met their community’s need for grief support.
Hospice providers are experts in grief and bereavement, and
we believe we can be of greater support on a grander scale to many. We realize
that with today’s COVID crisis, every person in the world has experienced form
of grief – whether that is loss of life, a job, normal routines, and much more.
We recorded our six-part video series with our social
workers called “Hope for the Holidays” for all those who have lost someone –
especially the medical field professionals, who have lost so many patients to
COVID. We hope to shine a light again on how hospice professionals are experts
in bereavement and grief and can be a resource to all during this
pandemic. We want to help. They can all be found on our YouTube page at www.youtube.com/user/gohospice.
“The holidays are a difficult time for many people and
layered with the COVID-19 pandemic, the emotional stress is at a level that
none of us can truly imagine. Due to the restrictions for infection
prevention, we wanted to be able to reach individuals who were grieving and
struggling in their living rooms or wherever they may be virtually,” said
Felicia Comfort, CSWA, social worker at Heart ‘n Home Hospice.
The videos provide coping skills and strategies, and they
give people permission to grieve and create new traditions.
“Normally, people are able to be together to grieve and we
know this year is very different. We wanted individuals who may be suffering,
to know they are not alone and there are ways to help them cope during this
holiday season. Our hope would be that they would not feel alone and normalize
their feelings,” Felicia said.
At Heart ‘n Home, we are always seeking new and innovative
ways to be a definitive leader in hospice care. The creation of a recorded Hope
for the Holidays series that would be accessible to everyone is another way to
get creative and innovative in a very difficult time.
“My inspiration came from the phrase, ‘Necessity is the
mother of invention.’ It is a necessity to deliver services to our communities
and given the current environment we are in, this seemed like one innovative
way to do so,” said Mandy Putzier, social worker at Heart ‘n Home Hospice.
“My hope is that we can reach people who we are unable to
reach due to COVID. But even bigger than COVID is the idea that many people
would benefit from this type of support outside of a pandemic. There are many
different ways people grieve, so I believe there should be many different ways
people have access to grief support. My hope is this will help people now and
into the future,” Mandy continued.
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