Provide companionship to hospice patients and/or a break (respite) for their caregivers by providing volunteer visits in the client's home or a care facility. Volunteer support requested once a week for a couple hours. There are breaks between new patient placements. You will not volunteer continuously for a year.
As a hospice patient companion volunteer, you would agree to volunteer a full year (or one full school year).
Hospice Volunteers can be called on to serve as patient companion in-home settings or local nursing facilities.
· In a home setting volunteers provide respite to caregiver and/or patient companionship 2 hours, once a week. Respite for caregivers allows them time to get things done around the house or complete errands/appointments outside the home. You will often be left alone for up to 2 hours with in-home patients and will be given information on patient needs. Volunteers will not be expected to provide skills-based/hands-on care.
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· Hospice training provided/required.
· Once you are placed with a patient/family you will provide regular, once weekly respites until the patient passes or your service is no longer needed. Placements can last only day/s or several months depending on the progression of the illness.
· If you volunteer in a nursing facility you will visit one (or more) of our VNA hospice patients s in need of a companionship. These visits are generally shorter and typically include patients of advanced age with some dementias or patients who are sleeping more, in decline and families requesting calm presence.
· There is no ‘Hospice House’ located in Lawrence, KS so volunteer visits occur in patient homes or facilities. *You will need to have a car/transportation.
It’s best if you have availability that would allow you to:
· Make visits during the weekday, once weekly for approximately 2 hours (until patient passes or service no longer needed. These placement timelines differ from weeks to months.)
· Make visits during the late morning or early afternoon. (common examples: 10am – noon or 2-4pm )
· Only available weekends? Placements are available during weekend hours as a friendly visitor for hospice patients in facility care. However, In-Home volunteer requests for regular volunteer support on weekends is less common. Please consider these limitations regarding volunteer requests if you are only available weekends.
· One time or short-term requests happen on occasion for caregivers needing to attend appointments or in need of support for short period of time.
· We also need volunteers willing to sit ‘vigil’ for patients who are actively dying. You will sit with patients who will mostly be unresponsive or in need of reassurance/presence. If you are also interested in late night vigil opportunities, please let me know.
Referrals for Hospice volunteers are requested of me by the patient’s Hospice social worker. Since volunteer placements are variable depending on referrals and volunteer availability, I’m not able to guarantee you will volunteer regularly every month. It just depends on the number of referrals and your ability to accept those placement requests. The longer you are able to volunteer, the more experiences and opportunities you will have to serve a variety of patients/families.
If you can be flexible regarding these changing commitments but still have availability, we can call on that would be best. Of course, a compassionate heart, ability to listen as well as a sense of humor and open mind will be of great benefit in this work.
To learn more about our Hospice volunteer program you are welcome to view the Hospice Volunteer Orientation Video:
Hospice Volunteer Orientation Video Link: http://youtu.be/7aATvGDpMk8
