The Challenge of creating a Hospice volunteer training program for your hospital or Hospice organization has been perfectly solved by the program produced by Border Mountain. This set of 7 videos or DVD's and 10 volunteer student manuals is the “Gold Standard” for Hospice Volunteer Training which covers and meets all Medicare Requirements. User-friendly, complete, and entertaining, the program is being used in nearly a thousand Hospices worldwide. This step by step guide to becoming a Hospice volunteer provides up to 28 hours of quality training through video instruction that leads participants through a workbook and group exercises. The videos and student manuals are meticulously designed to tap the mind’s hidden resources by accessing all of the Four Basic Learning Styles (See Sidebar to upper right).
Hospital and Hospice coordinators will find an additional wealth of information in the . This Guide contains all you need to design and implement a professional, comprehensive, and creative volunteer training. It helps you understand the needs and gifts of your volunteers so that you may more easily screen, recruit, and retain your quality people. Your helps you focus your training on each volunteer’s individual strengths, offers creative and sensitive problem solving, and shows how to honor your volunteer’s contributions in ways they will cherish the most.
About the Presenter: JoAnne Chitwood; film producer, seminar speaker, counselor, and registered nurse; has practiced in the Hospice field for over 20 years. An author of fifteen books, she has also had over sixty articles published in popular magazines and periodicals. JoAnne has a genuine talent for presenting material in an entertaining and easy to follow style. Her deep professional and personal knowledge of the grief process and Hospice enables her to bring out the best in each Hospice volunteer. Her videos are warm, personally compelling, and will touch your viewer’s hearts.
Course Outline
Chapter One: “What’s It All About?” provides a look at Hospice and how the volunteer fits in. It covers questions about the history and philosophy of Hospice, admission criteria, and what it takes to be a Hospice volunteer.
Chapter Two: “What Can I Do?” gives a detailed picture of what the volunteer’s role entails, covering questions like; “How will I be assigned to a Hospice family?” and “How much time will I be expected to give to my Hospice family?”. It provides guidelines for interacting appropriately with the Hospice family, as well as transfer techniques and music therapy.
Chapter Three: “The Greatest Gift” addresses communication skills, presenting the stages of dying and how to support someone emotionally through these stages. Common fears of the patient and family, good listening skills, avoiding clichés, and how to read body language are also covered.
Chapter Four: “Physical; Care of the Dying Person” covers the presenting symptoms of most cancers and other end stage disease processes to familiarize the volunteer with what they will be seeing in the home. AIDS care and Universal Precautions are presented, as well as the signs of active dying.
Chapter Five: “Things of the Spirit” defines spirituality and explores the spiritual needs of the patient, addressing those needs without being intrusive or invalidating their beliefs, and how to help them find peace within themselves.
Chapter Six: “A Time For Grief” explores the stages of grief, factors that influence the family’s grief process, signs of unhealthy grief, signs of healing, a child’s grief, etc.
Chapter Seven: “Caring For You” covers self-care for the Hospice volunteer, including how to create healthy boundaries, signs of burnout, self-nurturing activities, and other self-care techniques.
New - To Working with Hospice Volunteers. Hospice Volunteer Coordinators will find this new manual a valuable resource for attracting, training, and motivating volunteers. JoAnne taps into her deep well of personal experience working and motivating volunteers to bring you a resource that is timely, helpful, insightful, and enriching. See sidebar on this page for more information and order from our .
Also - In the transfer techniques section of Video 2: What Can I Do?, Sherman Hong, PT, very effectively demonstrates the safest and easiest ways to perform tub, wheelchair, bed, car and other transfers with a debilitated patient.
In response to requests from hospice programs that wish to train home caregivers in the best ways to transfer and position their loved ones, we now provide Sherman’s transfer technique instructional session on its own individual video/DVD.
TO ORDER - see our for Hospice Video and DVD Training materials.
Each chapter in the student manual and corresponding video or DVD is divided into segments that cover the Four Basic Learning Styles with a final assessment.
#1 "Just the Facts Please" provides factual information appealing to the left side of the brain where logical thought occurs.
#2 "At the Heart of the Matter" engages the right side of the brain, addressing emotions and stimulating volunteers to look inward to find their own heart’s responses to the material.
#3 "Putting it Into Practice" is more "hands on" in nature, providing practical exercises and real-life scenarios for the volunteer.
#4 "A Closer Look" focuses closely on one important aspect of the chapter topic, appealing to the part of the brain that thrives on patterns.
A final
"Skill Check" assesses progress and “cements” the learning. This open book test is a guide to summarizing chapter contents.
New Coordinator Manual To Working With Hospice Volunteers covers the seven key areas that must be attended to for a volunteer program to be a success. Using the acrostic RESPECT the sensitive leader will learn cutting edge techniques to:
Raise Awareness
Embrace Diversity
Safeguard Boundaries
Personalize Experiences
Evaluate Effectiveness
Create Meaning and
Thank From The Heart.
Spanish Translation!
Maddy Hazard, the volunteer coordinator of Livingston Memorial Hospice in Ventura - and Kenny Aragon, a Spanish speaking Hospice social worker, have accurately and sensitively translated the volunteer student manuals for the program.
Show your Spanish speaking volunteers that you value their contributions to hospice by training them in their mother tongue. Help them experience broader comprehension, deeper
insight, and a higher level of connectedness with the topics by presenting the material with familiar language and descriptions. When ordering manuals from our you may specify either English or Spanish.
“Great Job on the
training materials!
The information is
timely and thorough.
I used the
marketing suggestions
this time and
they worked great…”
Candace Bowman
Volunteer Coordinator
Lewiston, Montana
