As a hospice social worker, you need to be able to respond well to anger. There are many reasons why hospice patients or families may experience anger, and therefore, helping to resolve anger is an essential part of end-of-life comfort care.
Continue reading »Category: Part 2: Advanced approaches to patient and family care
Hospice social workers: compassionate normalizers
Hospice social workers walk lines between extremes to serve people in challenging situations. One such line is steady, normalizing empathy.
Continue reading »Five misconceptions about reporting abuse, neglect or exploitation in hospice
Many who work in hospice do not know how reporting abuse works. Do you? Here are 5 common misconceptions.
Continue reading »Five direct interventions for non-verbal patients
Five forms of “treatment” or “therapy” that hospice social workers can provide to non-verbal patients to help enrich their experiences.
Continue reading »Hearing the silent: Why hospice social workers must listen to even non-verbal patients
The first and last lesson of people-helping is to listen. This doesn’t change when the people we serve don’t have
Continue reading »Interacting with non-verbal patients as a hospice social worker
Now that we’ve discussed how to respond when people don’t stop talking, I thought it’s a good time to discuss
Continue reading »When hospice patients or family members won’t stop talking
Attentive listening is the primary service we offer hospice patients and their family members. Listening can validate the experiences that
Continue reading »Irvin Yalom’s wisdom for hospice social workers
No discussion of counseling in hospice would be complete without an acknowledgment of the little book that has become the
Continue reading »3 keys to trusting and comfortable relationships with hospice patients
As a hospice social worker, you want to be able to create genuine and trusting relationships that encourage patients and family members to feel comfortable enough to discuss difficult topics with you.
Continue reading »Hospice counseling: Forming a therapeutic relationship
Putting it simply, C+B=TR (Connection plus Boundaries equals Therapeutic Relationship). I recently attended a care-plan meeting for a lonely patient
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