When a patient passes away, a bevy of emotions can present themselves. The patient’s loved ones and family might feel grief, anger, relief, guilt, or confusion—among countless other emotions. At Ardent Hospice & Palliative Care, our services don’t stop when a patient is no longer with us. We continue to care for their family and help them navigate the feelings they experience after their loved one has gone.
Our hospice service provides bereavement services for 14 months after a patient dies, but we are here to support families for as long as they need us beyond that time. Here are five ways our spiritual chaplain, social worker, and hospice administration team continue to follow up with the family to make sure their emotional needs are being met.
Home Visits
Our chaplain will visit and meet with families to ensure they’re grieving appropriately and offer support. We know that people cope with grieve in different ways, and losing a loved one is extremely difficult and emotionally draining, so our team is careful in providing bereavement support that’s personalized to the family’s needs. We are persistent in connecting with our families—whether it’s a home visit, phone call, or card in the mail—and making sure they know they can reach out to us for support for as long as it’s needed.
Support Groups and Counseling
Besides providing families with one-on-one support, we also offer a monthly support program. Family members are welcomed to our support groups even if they don’t feel like talking or opening up just yet. We find that the grieving process is easier to walk through when they realize they’re not walking alone.
Therapy and Remembrance Events
At Ardent, we know grieving looks and feels different for everyone. That’s why we offer unique events to reach families in ways that resonate with them. We recently hosted an art therapy event where families could open up about what they were going through and release their emotions through painting.
And because of our foundation, we are able to fundraise and host special remembrance events in honor of patients who have passed. This gives families a chance to reconnect with our staff and nurses who had become such an important part of their lives and remember their loved one in a meaningful way.
NOSDAF
Our No One Should Die Alone Foundation gives us so many valuable resources in caring for patients and their loved ones. While patients are with us, NOSDAF allows us to provide them with necessities for life, life enrichment resources, and wish fulfillment opportunities to bring them a higher quality of life. Patients’ family members are often able to find peace once their loved one has passed because they know they were deeply cared for when they were still with us.
NOSDAF also gives families the opportunity to work through their grief by giving back to patients and other families who need support and care. Many of the families we’ve helped come back to volunteer with both NOSDAF and Ardent, or show up to events to support our organizations. They feel very touched by the experience they had and want to continue to spread that same love and support.
Additional Resources
The bereavement support we provide is always dependent on the family; we tailor our resources and counseling to the way the each person is grieving and where they are in the process. We have access to so many books, articles, Bible verses, educational materials, videos, and music, and can offer families those resources based on their specific needs at any given time. Our organization is also very connected to the community and can give families information on additional support groups and counseling that might be beneficial to them.
Our bereavement support continues to grow as we keep striving to meet our families’ needs. In the future, we hope to offer children’s camps and other counseling services. Visit us online or call (858) 952-1786 to find out more about our hospice and palliative care services and bereavement support.
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