Resources online > Death & Dying, Palliative Care, and Grief
- Advance Care Planning: Preferences at the End of Life
- is the title of a March 2003 report by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality that discusses how advance care planning can help ensure that the medical care preferences of patients who are terminally ill are honored by hospital doctors. The problem, according to the report, is that fewer than half of severely ill and terminally ill patients have an advance directive in their medical record. It goes on to assert that part of the reason for this is that physicians, who should help patients plan end-of-life care, are largely unaware of the existence of advance directives. The report also shows that most patients are willing to discuss end-of-life options with their doctors.
- Access to Hospice Care: Expanding Boundaries, Overcoming Barriers
- This is a report prepared by the Hastings Center and available to read online. Includes information on ordering copies of the report.
- Caring Connections, a program of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO), is a national consumer engagement initiative to improve care at the end of life, supported by a grant from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Caring Connections
- Provides free resources, information and motivation for actively learning about end-of-life resources.
- Promotes awareness of and engagement in efforts to increase access to quality end-of-life care.
- Helps people connect with the resources they need, when they need them.
- Brings together community, state and national partners working to improve end-of-life care.
- The Center For Loss and Healing
- The Center For Loss and Healing is committed to promoting compassionate and holistic care among professionals, spiritual leaders, and caregivers working with the dying, the bereaved, and others experiencing loss. Through an interdisciplinary approach, including academic programs, informative resources, and support services, the Center cultivates a healing community dedicated to understanding and embracing the diverse cultural, societal, psychological, and spiritual aspects of the grief experience.
- Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC)
- The Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) is a resource for hospitals and health systems interested in developing palliative care programs. The Center serves a broad constituency of providers and interested groups - including physicians, nurses, educators, policymakers, health researchers, payers, students and, ultimately, patients and their families - in an effort to improve the availability and quality of palliative care. CAPC is a national initiative supported by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with direction and technical assistance provided by Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
- GriefNet.org is an Internet community of persons dealing with grief, death, and major loss.
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ONE CARING PLACE, the publications division of Abbey Press, provides care resources which offer help and hope to the hurting. Our resources, now touching nearly ten million hearts per year, communicate that God cares and is near in good times and in bad. ONE CARING PLACE resources give special emphasis to grief, illness, aging, hospice, and distress issues.
With the creation of a series of small booklets known as "CareNotes," ONE CARING PLACE began offering its series of "people-helping booklets" worldwide. Since that date, more than 400 individual publications have been produced, and sales worldwide now exceed 100 million copies. Additionally, the gift-book publications of ONE CARING PLACE--book series such as Elf-help Books and Elf-help Books for Kids-- are featured in thousands of gift shops and bookstores nationwide. They've also been translated into more than a dozen languages worldwide.
Serving people's deepest needs for help and hope, ONE CARING PLACE continues to expand its offerings of support literature and its outreach to caring institutions and organizations.
- Paul Alexander is a singer, songwriter, psychotherapist, author, actor and performing artist who has shared his music and message of hope throughout the United States and Canada.
His recordings are resource tools being utilized by Church Groups, Funeral Homes, Hospices, and Hospitals as well as bereavement support groups and individual caregivers. Paul's contemporary style combined with his compassionate lyrics and compelling vocal delivery touch the heart and soul of the listener and provide healing and upliftment.
- KIDSAID is a safe place for kids to share and to help each other deal with grief about any of their losses. It's a place to share and deal with feelings, to show artwork and stories, to talk about pets, to meet with one's peers. KIDSAID is owned and run by GriefNet.
- Called by the healing ministry of Jesus, the National Catholic Ministry to the Bereaved is committed to serve all people who have experienced the death of a loved one. Our holistic care is dedicated to the spiritual support of individuals, parishes, and communities.
National Public Radio Online- NPR has a series called The End of Life: Exploring Death in America.
- The End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC) project is a comprehensive, national education program a major grant from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Primary project goals are to develop a core of expert nursing educators and to coordinate national nursing education efforts in end-of-life care.
- Supportive Care of the Dying is a non-profit coalition supported by their members who represent many outstanding health care and Catholic organizations throughout the country. They actively initiate research projects and develop and test innovative tools that their members can use before they are offered to the public. They also support each other as they initiate systemic or organizational change in the care of persons affected by life-threatening illness.
- The Compassionate Friends is a national nonprofit, self-help support organization which offers friendship and understanding to families who are grieving the death of a child of any age, from any cause. There is no religious affiliation. There are no membership fees or dues, and all bereaved family members are welcome.
- Willowgreen is a provider of information and inspiration in the areas of illness and dying, loss and grief, healthy caregiving, life transition, and spirituality. Willowgreen is the creation of James E. Miller, writer and photographer, trainer and speaker, grief counselor and clergyman. Willowgreen offers books, audiotapes, and videotapes each a unique blend of helpful advice and age-old wisdom, sound psychology and deeply-rooted spirituality, the practical along with the poetic.
- A program is now available for nursing homes and long-term care facilities: Good Endings. The program consists of recruiting and training vigil teams of volunteers to sit with the dying, implementing staff education on end-of-life issues, resource libraries, Remembrance services, and bereavement counseling. The program was founded by Dr. Donalyn Gross, PhD, LCSW, CMP, who has worked as a thanatologist with the terminally ill and their loved ones for over 25 years.
- The Grief Recovery Institute released a 2003 report called, “The Grief Index,” which examines the hidden cost of grief in the modern workplace. The Grief Recovery Institute is an internationally recognized authority that provides programs for The Compassionate Friends, The National SIDS Foundation, The National AIDS Network, The University of California at Irvine, Chapman University, and many others.
- The Mission of The Hospice of the Florida Suncoast is to:
Provide dignified, quality comfort care that enhances the lives of dying people and their families
Assure the long-term mental, spiritual, physical health and general well-being of survivors after loss
Lead and influence the health and human services community in the care of all people affected by end-of-life issues
Shape public opinion and policy on issues related to death, dying, grief and bereavement
Be the center to enhance the quality of life for those affected by death.
- The Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute section on care for the terminally ill and the dying... is a resource for Catholics who are faced with end-of-life decisions about dignity, quality of life and spiritual well-being.
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