Social workers are compassionate professionals who improve the lives of others through guidance, encouragement, and support. Hospice care teams rely on social workers to console and counsel terminal patients and their families.
Hospice promotes quality end-of life care by focusing on patient comfort and emotional support throughout the stages of dying. The hospice social worker helps patients accept the reality of their condition. It’s common for terminally ill patients to suffer from anxiety, grief and depression. Social workers are trained to recognize these conditions and work to alleviate as much mental and emotional anguish for them as possible, there-by enabling the best quality of life in the time they have left.
Hospice social workers help terminal patients:
Cope with fear
Redirect their anger
Work through regret and guilt
Process grief
Manage anxiety and depression
Find peace
Social workers provide support for family members as well. They offer advance planning resources, a shoulder to cry on, and counseling to ease the anxiety that accompanies losing a loved one. They also provide long-term bereavement support through group sessions and individual counseling. Most hospice agencies provide free grief support to family members for a year after their loved has passed.
Do your part this March during National Social Work Month to recognize the invaluable services the social workers in your agency provide every day. Acknowledge the dedication of these professionals committed to helping others be all they can be.
Highlight the social workers in your agency throughout the month of March on your social media outlets.
Ask a social worker on your staff to write a guest blog for your website about social work and Hospice care.
Send Social Work Month greeting cards to the social work professionals who work for and with your agency every day.
Provide hospitals in your area with hospice discharge planner brochures to highlight the work of your agency’s social work professionals as you show your support for National Social Work Month.
Visit TAGwebstore.com for all your hospice and home health print media.