DUKE HOSPICE VOLUNTEERS
CARING FOR OUR PATIENTS, THEIR LOVED ONES, AND EACH OTHER
Duke Hospice Volunteer Newsletter
August 2012
August and September are chockfull of educational opportunities for our Duke
Hospice volunteers. Check them out, register and be challenged by our
engaging speakers and seminars.

First up is the First-Ever National Hospice and Palliative Care
Organization (NHPCO) Virtual Conference for Volunteers and
Volunteer Managers: Ignite the Future. Volunteer Day, Thursday, August 2, from
10:30 to 6:30 at our Durham office. This is a wonderful opportunity to learn and
network. You can attend one session or the entire day. Please call Carolyn if you
would like more information or to RSVP. We will provide snacks and lunch for those
volunteers who spend the day at our virtual conference. Schedule includes:
10:30 – 12:00 Plenary:
Volunteers:
The Heart of Hospice
Volunteers:
Exceptionalism in Care and Practice
12:30 - 1:30
Spirituality at the End of Life
Spirituality and religion touch deeply sensitive issues for many people. Facing death and
dying can bring up these issues, not just for hospice patients but also for clinicians and
volunteers. This session will highlight common spiritual needs and issues at end of life,
and provide helpful suggestions for volunteers regarding their interactions with patients.
2:00 – 3:00
Surviving Ourselves--Change, Loss and Self-Compassion
To effectively hold the stories of others requires a hospice volunteer to have a significant
understanding of their own personal story — particularly as it relates to change, loss and
grief. This session will offer participants the opportunity to explore the concepts of the
wounded healer, disenfranchised grief, compassion fatigue and self-compassion in
relationship to personal loss history.
3:30 – 4:30
When Communication Is Difficult: Reaching the Cognitively
Impaired Patient
For hospice volunteers as well as staff, the communication essential to making a
connection can seem difficult, if not impossible, when the patient has a dementia disease.
Understanding the diseases which lead to cognitive impairment is important, but
understanding the key to communication is essential. This session will provide
participants with skills to communicate differently when there is dementia – to be “with
patients in the moment,” to use past memories to spark new conversation and to
understand even when conversation is no longer possible.
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5:00 – 6:00
Raising Your Ethical Antennae
Of all the members of the interdisciplinary team, volunteers spend the longest stretches
of time with patients and families. Thus, they are uniquely positioned to pick up on issues
that may be impeding care or causing conflict. Sometimes these problems involve ethical
issues, but volunteers are not well equipped to identify or articulate ethical dilemmas.
This lively presentation will provide a working understanding of healthcare ethics and its
role in patient care, as well as real-world tools for recognizing and articulating ethical
problems. Case examples of The Disappointed Sister, Culture Clash, Drunk and
Disorderly, Suffer in Silence? and The Tattling Temp will engage learners and reinforce
concepts.

Friday, August 3 from 8:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. Disenfranchised Grief in the 21st
Century: New Problems, New Strategies Webinar, Duke Hospice office in Durham. Dr.
Kenneth J. Koka, professor of gerontology at the College of New Rochelle and sr.
consultant to the Hospice Foundation of America will present. This webinar describes
disenfranchised grief as grief that is not openly acknowledged, socially sanctioned, or
publicly mourned. The presentation explores the contexts and causes of disenfranchised
grief as well as complications arising from disenfranchisement and emphasizes the
cultural factors that can disenfranchise grief. There will be a strong emphasis on
interventive strategies that can enfranchise grief. Register with Carolyn for this event.

Friday, August 10 from 8:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. Dying Well and Caring Well for the
Dying, Duke Divinity School, $20 includes seminar, lunch and parking. Assuming a
Christian starting point, this seminar brings together doctors, a psychiatrist, academics,
and a funeral director to address perspectives and practices in death and dying. Register
or get more information from ICEOL@div.duke.edu

Friday, September 7 from 7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. Real Happiness: The Power of
Meditation, Reynolds Theater, Duke University West Campus. Advance price $15 ($20
day of lecture). New York Times bestselling author Sharon Salzberg, cofounder of the
Insight Meditation Society, tells us that happiness that is not shaken by conditions
begins with imagining that such stable and open happiness exists, and could exist for us.
We also need wisdom in order to know how to make such happiness real. This implies
patience, perspective, and an ability to see things as they are. During this evening we
will explore our notions of happiness, strength, aloneness and possibility. We'll practice
meditation along with dialogue and discourse. Suitable for both beginning and more
experienced meditators. For tickets or more information, call 919-286-1207.

Friday, September 14 from 8:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m., Durham Hilton, 3800 Hillsborough
Rd., Durham. One Day at a Time … Creative Approaches to Care for Those with
Memory Disorders. Nationally renowned dementia expert Teepa Snow will present a
daylong workshop for professionals and caregivers. You will gain skills and knowledge to
allow you to care for and communicate more effectively with those who have memory
disorders, dementia and / or Alzheimer’s Disease. Everyone in our community is invited
to attend (registration is $60). Contact April Perry at april.perry@duke.edu to register or
for more information. Carolyn can give you information on the discounted rate for Duke
Hospice Volunteers.
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Duke Home Care & Hospice Volunteer Opportunities:
Craft opportunity: Crocheting Hearts of Hospice heartshaped bookmarks as mementos for families /
caregivers to be used by in-patient unit staff in time-ofdeath rituals. Sue Blancato has identified this new
opportunity and is interested in gathering like-minded
volunteers to crochet these beautiful teal and purple
(hospice colors) hearts. An experienced crocheter can
make one in 15-30 minutes. For the novice, we have
crocheting instructions. For everyone, we have the bookmark pattern as well as materials to get
you started. Give it a try. The families love them. We are also looking for someone to design a
simple card to be given to families/loved ones to explain the bookmark. Due to the success of
her initial groups, Sue is scheduling an additional session for Friday, August 10 at 1:00 p.m. at
the Durham office. If you are interested in participating, contact Sue at sueblancato@ymail.com.
Recognizing our veterans at the end of life: Our volunteer veteran’s
recognition program is off to a great start! These moving ceremonies have
prompted powerful stories and heartfelt expressions of gratitude from family and
friends to our dying vets. We are looking for additional volunteers who are
veterans to help us present pins and certificates to veteran patients to let them
know we value their service to our country. If you are a veteran and are
interested, please contact Carolyn. If you know vets who would be interested in
this program, please pass Carolyn’s contact information along. Nonveteran volunteers have
been enormously helpful and are certainly welcome to participate.
The August Admission Packet Assembly (aka PAPER SLAM!) workday will be Saturday,
August 25 from 9 a.m.-noon at the Durham office. Call Carolyn if you would like to participate.
This is a low investment / high impact project we undertake almost every month to keep the
paperflow in the agency running smoothly. Please grab a friend or two and come along. Snacks
are on us!
All our programs value the volunteer support they receive and we have many
requests for additional weekday clerical support at the Durham office as well as
the Bereavement Center. If you have time to make a regular commitment,
please consider this important project:
 We need volunteers to make customer service phone calls weekday
afternoons from the Durham office. If you or someone you know might
be interested in helping, give Carolyn a call.
Patient family / support volunteer focused-weekend training will run September 22-24.
If you or some generous-hearted person you know are interested in training for some of the
most rewarding volunteer work you’ll ever do contact Carolyn Colsher for more information and
to register for a place in the class.
If you love to read and to discuss smart books with smart people, please join the
Duke Hospice book club. Under Rana Davis’s guiding hand, the group will be
reading and discussing Losing My Mind: An Intimate Look at Life with
Alzheimer’s by Thomas DeBaggio, Monday, August 20 at 6 p.m. at our Durham
office. If you would like to participate or want more information, contact Rana at
rcmccutchen@earthlink.net or call Carolyn for Rana’s phone number. For more
information see the Continuing Education BookNotes article of August 2010.
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The 2012-13 season at Playmakers Repertory Theater in Chapel Hill cranks up in September
with John Logan’s Tony Award winner “Red” and runs through the spring with a full schedule of
Tony and Pulitzer winners and theater classics galore. If you would like to be on the contact list
for the free tickets available through their Spotlight on Service program, please let Carolyn
know. Our volunteers who attend these performances rave about their quality and sign up early.
Patient / family support volunteers—Training update. A new module on seizures is being
added to the training manual. Please contact Carolyn for your copy of the information handout.
And a question for you volunteers on the front line—in the homes and nursing
facilities that are the homes of our patients: Do you ever get stumped by a
situation in your volunteer work? Use the resources of your hospice team to
support your work with your patients and families. Call Carolyn or Gricelle to talk
things over or to ask to be connected to the nurse, social worker, chaplain or
nursing assistant caring for your patient.
Cake and Conversation—Many thanks from Carolyn to the many volunteers who
joined her for this opportunity to share special events in our lives and to network.
Special thanks to Anne Weston for organizing the event and providing so many
special touches.
Dialing Reminder: All calls with a 919 area code must now be dialed using the ten-digit
number.
August is expected to be another sizzler of a month. Please refer to last
month’s continuing education article on living well in the heat. Take care of yourself
and watch out for your patient’s comfort.
A RESOURCE FOR YOU Continuing Education for August: Helping You Prevent Falls at
Home.
For more information contact:
Carolyn Colsher, DHCH Volunteer Services Supervisor
(919) 479-0385 (phone) (919) 970-0227 (pager) carolyn.colsher@duke.edu
Gricelle Font, DHCH Volunteer Program Coordinator
(919) 479-0499 gricelle.font@duke.edu
Website: dhch.duhs.duke.edu
When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who,
instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a
gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with
us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the
reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
Henri Nouwen
And thank you, as always, for everything you do for our patients and families.
Carolyn and Gricelle
Mission Statement: Duke HomeCare & Hospice will provide innovative, thoughtful care, using an interdisciplinary team approach,
to achieve the best possible outcomes for the patients, families and communities we serve.
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