Table of contents

You can find links to hospice social work articles below. Check them out!

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Introduction

Why do hospice social work

Why read this blog

Defining hospice social work success

Two kinds of success in hospice social work

Who knows what a hospice social worker does?

The simple way to describe what a hospice social worker does

How you know you’re succeeding as a hospice social worker

Get your first hospice social work job

How to get a job in hospice straight out of school


Four steps to take now to prepare for a hospice job in the near future

How to do hospice social work: what to learn before your interview

Getting started at a new position

The hospice patient information spreadsheet – what it is and why it’s important

Advice from hospice social workers on starting a new position

Initial psychosocial assessments

The hospice psychosocial assessment: your first contact with a new patient

The ASSESSMENT part of the hospice psychosocial assessment

How the hospice social worker can make a great first impression on new clients

Help patients get more out of your service by listing what you provide

Advance Directives

Advance directives and the hospice social worker

Hospice and MPOAs: 3 reasons hospice patients need a proxy

What hospice social worker’s need to know about how MPOAs work

DNRs & Hospice: clarifying the social worker’s role

5 important steps in managing DNRs

Ethical issues of encouraging funeral planning

How to compassionately discuss funeral planning

Routine visits

The reason for frequent routine visits

Routine visit checklist

The key to connection

Community resource referrals

Getting “pushy” with community resources in hospice

Pushy persuasiveness: The hospice social worker’s super power

How you can succeed in resource advocacy for hospice patients (and the approach you must avoid/overcome)

Learning from my own family’s experience

What I’m learning about hospice as I face my grandfather’s illness, Part 1

When family members decline hospice (Hospice social work lesson 2 learned while witnessing my grandfather’s care)

Don’t push hospice. The need of a spokesperson. (Hospice social work lessons 3 and 4 learned while witnessing my grandfather’s care.)

Enrichment

Enriching the lives of hospice patients

Uncover your patients’ wildest dreams so you can help them come true

Adventures in enriching the lives of hospice patients

Documentation

Hospice social work visit notes made easy

Tricks to getting documentation done faster

IDT meeting participation

Navigating the interdisciplinary team meetings

Sad truth about hospice IDTs: Rank always matters

What to be ready to report during IDT meetings

Attending deaths

Attending a death as a hospice social worker: Keep the wild puppy still!

Attending death without agenda

The hospice social worker mindset

Elements of the hospice social worker mindset: belief in solutions

Hospice social workers: Before you can “be there,” you gotta get there

Secure vulnerability: being emotionally present in a professional role

Acceptance: element #4 of the hospice social worker mindset

3 characters that describe the social worker mindset (and a confession of sexism)

Hospice social workers: compassionate normalizers

Counseling in Hospice

Counseling in hospice: Comfort comes first, breakthroughs come on occasion

Hospice counseling: Forming a therapeutic relationship

3 keys to trusting and comfortable relationships with hospice patients

Irvin Yalom’s wisdom for hospice social workers

When hospice patients or family members won’t stop talking

Anger in hospice: How you can respond effectively

Provide social/emotional support to non-verbal patients

Interacting with non-verbal patients as a hospice social worker

Hearing the silent: Why hospice social workers must listen to even non-verbal patients

Five direct interventions for non-verbal patients

Staying resilient and avoiding burnout

You can be a resilient hospice social worker

First aid for burnout

5 steps to building supportive work relationships in the hospice team

Love, freedom, and the social worker’s battle against burnout

How hospice social work changes you

Reporting abuse, neglect and exploitation

Five misconceptions about reporting abuse, neglect or exploitation in hospice

Succeeding with the team

When hospice nurses get anxious about patient care

Success with complex cases

A nursing home nightmare, Part 1

Awakening from the nursing home nightmare (Part 2)