Sheridan Memorial Hospital’s Hospice will host a volunteer training in late September. Potential Hospice volunteers and other interested individuals may attend the training before deciding whether to become a volunteer. Volunteers have flexible hours and can participate in various ways, including helping in homes, in the Hospice office or at various activities throughout the year.
Hospice offers a team approach to end-of-life care for people who have been diagnosed as having six months or less to live and would like to die in the comfort of their own home. Families get to choose how much of the “team” they want after the initial visit. Hospice offers nursing services, CNAs, volunteers, psychosocial and emotional support and spiritual care coordination with one’s own faith family and also provides spiritual counsel with the Hospice chaplain.
One of the most important components of Hospice is education for the patient and their family.
“Learning about the normal changes and processes the body and mind go through can make this time less scary and stressful,” said Hospice Social Worker and Volunteer Coordinator, Cindy Baker.
Baker said Hospice volunteer training will cover many topics including body mechanics, how to safely transfer someone from bed to wheelchair and assisting someone with a walker. Volunteers learn about infection control, confidentiality, practicing active listening and maintaining healthy boundaries, stress management, the role of spirituality in hospice and different aspects of bereavement. Baker also added that the training serves as a screening time for both the volunteer and the Hospice team to find out if Hospice is a good fit for them.
According to Baker, “Most importantly, we learn the difference between serving versus rescuing — how to empower the caregivers and the person dying instead of taking over. Each of us will have our own death journey and most of us will accompany someone on that journey. Being fully present with someone else’s pain, sorrow, goodbyes, grouchiness, fear, anger, humor and vulnerability takes self-awareness.”
She added that it includes not acting on the desire to fix or to change and not taking things personally.
“We learn it’s not about us. As a hospice team, we stand witness to a family’s hard times, but also their incredible love stories. Again and again I see people being willing to love and care for someone in the face of life being hard.”
This year marks Baker’s 29th year at Hospice as volunteer coordinator. Before that, she volunteered and served on the board with Sheridan County Hospice for 6 years. Her love for hospice work grows each year. Hospice families have taught her many things, but mostly about the depth, strength and resilience of the human spirit, how to be comfortable with the uncomfortable and to not assume that she knows how to do something better than a person who has loved another for a long time.
Those interested in learning more about Hospice or who want to participate in the volunteer training should contact Cindy Baker at Sheridan Memorial Hospital’s Hospice at 307.672.1083.