There are so many ways you can join us and offer meaningful help and support to those in our community who need it the most. Here are some of them:
Direct Care Volunteer
Direct Care Volunteers offer give direct support to those with a life-limiting illness by helping with daily tasks and giving respite to full-time caregivers.
Tender Care Volunteer
Active hospice volunteers who wish to receive training in order to give families and caregivers additional emotional support and guidance during the last hours in a patient’s life are able to become Tender Care Volunteers. These volunteers also offer compassionate companionship to a person who would otherwise face dying alone.
Teen Bereavement Peer Volunteer
These teen volunteers walk beside a grieving friend or family member and offer compassionate support after the loss of a loved one. Teen Bereavement Peer Volunteers are able to encourage their peers to seek help from a variety of sources, including the teen grief support groups offered by HVOSC.
Teen Volunteer
High school students wishing to receive the skills necessary to make a difference in the lives of their fellow community members are invited to become Teen Volunteers. These students provide administrative support in our office, assist with fundraising and join our efforts toward community outreach and service.
Adult Bereavement Companion
A bereavement companion is someone who has navigated their own experience of grief and is now able to walk beside and support someone else on their journey. These trained volunteers help the grieving hold their burden of sorrow while still finding comfort and hope in the future. The program is specifically designed to serve those who may not be able to attend a weekly support group but still need bereavement support.
Group Facilitator
These volunteers help to co-facilitate grief support groups. We offer both drop-in support groups and ones that are tailored for those who are grieving under unique circumstances.
Interested in Becoming a Volunteer?
Let us know! Send us your information and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. You can also call us directly at 207-474-7775, or email Heather at hvosc.volunteercoordinator@gmail.com
Continuing Education for Volunteers
HVOSC volunteers need 8 hours of continuing education credits per year. Volunteers can earn 0.5 hours for each article read, and videos will be valued at their actual running time. You must record each item completed and submit the list to us. Please call 207-474-7775 or email Heather at hvosc.volunteercoordinator@gmail.com for more information.
- Delirium: Opportunity for Comfort in Palliative Care from the Journal of Hospice and Palliative Nursing 2012; 14(6):386-394. Link to article: HOEM
- In Facing Death, FRONTLINE gains extraordinary access to The Mount Sinai Medical Center, one of New York’s biggest hospitals, to take a closer measure of today’s complicated end-of-life decisions. In this intimate, groundbreaking film, doctors, patients and families speak with remarkable candor about the increasingly difficult choices people are making at the end of life: when to remove a breathing tube in the ICU; when to continue treatment for patients with aggressive blood cancers; when to perform a surgery; and when to call for hospice.
- Pitching in When Caregivers Need Help, Kiplinger’s Retirement Report. Link to article: Caregivers
- Interesting article and video from CNN exploring a different way to care for those with dementia: ‘Dementia Village’ – as it has become known — is a place where residents can live a seemingly normal life, but in reality are being watched all the time. Caretakers staff the restaurant, grocery store, hair salon and theater — although the residents don’t always realize they are carers — and are also watching in the residents’ living quarters.
- Collection of articles on the topic of Hospice from the New York Times. Free access and quite a number of articles from which to choose: New York Times Topics in Hospice Care
- NPR’s collection of articles on the topic of Hospice: NPR Topics in Hospice Care
- Caregiver resources that are quite clever: http://www.kiplinger.com/article/retirement/T013-C000-S004-pitching-in-when-caregivers-need-help.html
