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Support
Teams provide practical, emotional, and spiritual support so individuals and
families will not have to cope alone.
Support Teams provide practical, emotional and spiritual support for
people who need help with caregiving. We
have created and sustained teams
for people dealing with cancer, congestive heart failure, Alzheimer’s
disease, vision impairment, kidney failure, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s
disease, long term disability, and other life-changing health conditions.
Working together as a team, volunteers pool their talents, time, and creativity, to offer much more support than one volunteer
can provide alone. Through Project
Compassion, recipients, team members, leaders, and coaches receive the support
they need to sustain caregiving community over the long haul.
This service is offered at no cost to the recipients.
Since 2002, over 80 Support Teams with 625 volunteers provided 15,000
hours of volunteer caregiving for 250 individuals. Project
Compassion creates special support for seniors
With a small demonstration grant from the National Council on Aging in
2004-2005, Project Compassion created a network of Support Teams made up of
senior volunteers serving people in the community.
With a grant from the Lance Armstrong Foundation in 2005-2006, we are
creating Support Teams for children, teens and young adults living with cancer
and involving children and teens in volunteering to support people living with
cancer. These focused services for
seniors and children will expand our growing network of partner groups and
organizations working together to provide caregiving in our community.
Our partnership network now includes 50 organizations and 185 local
volunteer leaders and coaches. Advance
care planning helps people understand and communicate end-of-life care choices
so that their wishes will be honored and relationships strengthened.
Helping people plan ahead
for end-of-life wishes has been a core Project Compassion initiative since we
began 5 years ago. However, two
news events in 2005 gave us remarkable opportunities to engage people both
locally and nationally around end of life planning.
On January 2, 2005, the Business Section of the Sunday New York Times
published a feature article entitled: “After Writing a Will, You Still Have I’s to Dot”. This
article was inspired by Project Compassion’s collaboration with Dr. Trudy
Couch, author of the workbook “Getting
It Together, Planning Ahead”. (also
known with the title “Passing on Thoughtfully”)
The impact of this nation-wide exposure has been tremendous.
People from everywhere in the country have ordered the book for
themselves, family members, and friends
and neighbors. Taking a whole-life
approach to planning ahead, the workbook has become a powerful tool to
help people understand, communicate, and document not only health care matters,
but also legal, financial, personal, and spiritual matters as well.
The second event that has shaped our community engagement around planning
ahead this year was the difficult and painful conflict that surrounded Terri
Schiavo. Although viewpoints were
sharply divided, what became crystal clear is how important it is for each of us
to talk with the important people in our lives about the kind of end of life
care we want for ourselves.
Since 2005, Project Compassion distributed over 5000 copies of the
workbook internationally. Over 700
people attended a Project Compassion program on advance care planning and over
2600 people received resources and support by phone, mail or email.
Workshops,
events, tools, and resources help people gain the knowledge and support they need to
care for themselves Through Community Engagement, we offer public forums, workshops, guest speakers, and symposia on a range
of topics to help people deal with the physical, emotional, spiritual, and
practical aspects of serious illness, caregiving, end-of-life, and grief.
Stand-out events include “From Nancy Cruzan to Terri Schiavo:
What Have We Learned?” with acclaimed author, Cruzan family lawyer, and
national
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