Caring Community - Talking Things Over

A Caregiver's Challenge

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 15:04:44 -0800

Maryann Schacht, MSW, BCD, is an author, speaker, and workshop leader with more than 30 years experience working with families in crisis. Her book titled A Caregiver’s Challenge: Living, Loving, Letting Go offers a road map and survival guide to everyone who is suddenly thrust into a caregiver role. She combines her personal experience caring for her terminally ill husband with her professional expertise in this invaluable resource. A Caregiver’s Challenge offers support, resources, and useful exercises for caregivers and their patients.

Maryann is frequently interviewed on national radio about caregivers and comfort care issues and may be contacted at 707-537-9419.

A Framework For Thinking Ethically

Thu, 3 Nov 2005 09:26:07 -0800

A Framework For Thinking Ethically
Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University
This document is designed as an introduction to thinking ethically. We all have an image of our “better selves” - or of how we are when we act ethically or are “at our best.” We probably also have an image of what an ethical community, an ethical business, or an ethical government is - and maybe even an ethical society as a whole. Ethics really has to do with all three levels - acting ethically as individuals, creating ethical organizations and governments, and making our society as a whole ethical in the way it treats all.

Caring Connections - It's About How You LIVE

Sat, 3 Jan 2009 11:23:23 -0800

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.

Caring Conversations

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:30:05 -0800

*Caring Conversations* was developed by the Center for Practical Bioethics as a consumer education initiative to help individuals and their families share meaningful conversation while making practical preparations for end-of-life decisions.

Caring Conversations is endorsed by the National Hospice and Palliative Care Association and is a recommended resource by AARP and Bill Moyers' outreach materials for his PBS series, On Our Own Terms.

The goals of Caring Conversations:
·To shift the focus of advance care planning to include conversations with family and friends
·To provide community education

Caring Resources Guide

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:22:59 -0800

Caring Resources Guide (by the Compassionate Care Alliance of Monterey County) provides links to what may be among the best articles on the web or websites that discuss the many issues about serious illness, caregiving, end-of-life, and grief recovery. Includes information about diagnosis and prognosis, learning how to cope, disease management, and so much more as "A Gateway to Informatioin, Care Choices and Planning."

Center for Practical Bioethics Resource Links

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:39:35 -0800

The Center for Practical Bioethics offers a variety of publications, video and audiotapes designed to enhance ethics education and promote discussion of ethics issues. Links are provided for free material and for items to purchase via their online store.

Center for Practical Bioethics-Case Studies at the Crossroads of decision

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:41:03 -0800

Case studies provide a way for us to analyze and think-through difficult medical and moral situations. This Center for Practical Bioethics webpage links you to stories that will challenge you to think clearly as you consider options at the crossroads of decision.

Children's Hospice & Palliative Care Coalition

Thu, 2 Feb 2012 11:06:25 -0800

Children's Hospice and Palliative Care Coalition of California is a group of organizations, institutions and individuals from throughout the State of California working together to promote compassionate medical care which includes spiritual, emotional and financial support for children with life-threatening illnesses. ...because when a child has a serious illness, medicine is not enough...

Christel Lukoff, MSW, Ph.D. (Storyteller)

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 19:24:13 -0800

Christel Lukoff, MSW, Ph.D.
707- 763-3504
Petaluma, CA

Psychotherapist and hospice social worker Christel Lukoff
shares traditional folktales that metaphorically express
many of the feelings and issues encountered in grief. The
stories remind us of the healing power of memories and of
ways to find an ongoing relationship with a loved one who
has died. Christel’s commentaries deepen and transform our
understanding of grief and remind us how love and loss are
interwoven. To order CDs from Christel or to schedule a
storytelling presentation, contact Christel.

Circus of Cancer – Breast Cancer Support

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:54:46 -0800

Circus of Cancer-Breast Cancer Support
A how-to site to help you step right up when a friend has breast cancer. From the heart info includes: Upon first hearing the news; boosting her spirits, helping her family, supporting chemo treatments, talking to your friend, for her husband or other partner, great sites for small gifts, pink ribbons. Kelly Corrigan, initiator Circus of Cancer, first diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer in August 2004, and Nan Davenport, designer who together with Kelly has made educational software for kids and teachers since 1999.

Coda Alliance

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 18:46:47 -0800

The Coda Alliance is a collaborative in Silicon Valley that share the goal to implement social change in end-of-life care. Their mission is to provide practical skills and tools to plan and receive care wanted at the end of life. They publish the "Go Wish" cards in English and Spanish for assisting with advance care planning and thinking about end of life wishes.

Consider the Conversation: A Documentary on a Taboo Subject

Fri, 13 May 2011 13:09:01 -0700

A gressroots project to improve end of life care, this film sheds light on the 21st century American struggle with communication and preparation at the end-of-life. Throughout the film, there are intimate accounts of the emotional, spiritual, physical and social burdens associated with the historical shift that has occurred with dying. Forty years ago, most people experienced a quick death, but today we are more likely to suffer a slow, incremental dying process.

Consider the Conversation examines multiple perspectives on end-of-life care and includes information and experiences gathered from interviews with patients, family members, doctors, nurses, clergy, social workers, and national experts on death and dying. The film includes in-depth interviews with 40+ individuals from California, Illinois, Indiana, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont and Wisconsin. 62 “person on the street” interviews were also conducted in New York City in April of 2010.

Consumer Help Site - National Association of Social Workers

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 15:11:09 -0800

In thousands of ways, social workers help people help themselves. People of every age. From every background. In every corner of the country - wherever we’re needed - starting here and now. Welcome to your source for professional advice, inspiring stories - even a social worker directory. Social workers. Help starts here. This website is provided by the National Association of Social Workers and includes sections on Seniors and Aging, Issues and Answers, Mind and Spirit. The Senior section includes in-depth look issues of import, real life stories shared, resources of value, current trends, helpful tip, options and other information helpful for finding one’s way through the senior years. The Health and Well Being section includes information related to death and dying, living with illness, pain management, etc. The Mind and Spirit section includes orientation to various mental illnesses, grief & loss and other helpful information.

Critical Conditions

Wed, 20 Oct 2004 16:25:06 -0700

CRITICAL Conditions (SM) is a program that can help you and your loved ones talk about your final health care decisions.

Final Crossing: Learning to Die in Order to Live

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 15:33:42 -0800

The Final Crossing: Learning to Die in Order to Live is a new book by Dr. Scott Eberle, Medical Director, Hospice of Petaluma. “This book is itself a rite of passage. Extraordinary insights shared by two remarkable people, one dying, the other the inner life and decisions of the physician and friend attending this fine fellow preparing to head into death. This is the best work of its sort I have come across. There are so many levels, so many books in this book that it might well become a teaching text in many classrooms.” Stephen Levine, author of Who Dies?, Healing into Life and Death, and A Year to Live