Iowa City Hospice Quarterly newsletter for volunteers
Volunteer timesheet
Volunteers in hospice: a powerful force
The roles of hospice volunteers
How might I be involved as an Iowa City Hospice volunteer?
Volunteer training and education
Check our calendar or e-mail us for volunteer training dates.

Volunteers in Hospice:
A Powerful Force

Volunteers' involvement continues to be a strong and essential component of hospice operations. Though volunteerism has been a key ingredient of hospice care in the United States since its inception in 1974, its importance was further underscored by its inclusion as a condition of participation under the hospice Medicare legislation passed in 1982. A mid-nineties National Hospice Organization survey of volunteerism found that there were more than 95,000 volunteers (approximately 75,000 female and 21,000 male) providing more that 5.25 million hours of service in only one year. More than 55% of hospice patients and families in hospice care accept volunteers.

Hospice volunteers are a loyal group with the average volunteer remaining approximately three years with hospice. Fifty percent of volunteers stay six or more years. Last year, Iowa City Hospice volunteers contributed more than 6,000 hours of their time. These hours touched individual patients and families in many ways--providing a needed break to caregivers; providing meals; delivering supplies; transporting to clinic; supporting the organization and its financial viability; providing therapies; and lending a listening ear.

Volunteer services are provided under the direction of volunteer coordinators. A volunteer coordinator works closely with other members of the hospice team to assign and monitor volunteer activities.

The Roles of Iowa City Hospice Volunteers

Volunteers in direct service

Volunteers in direct service have direct contact with patients and families and may perform a variety of duties. Common functions of direct services volunteer may include:

1. To be a caring, supportive and empathetic individual who can supplement the sociological, psychological, and spiritual support services of the hospice team.
2. To provide respite for a family member or other primary caregiver.
3. To provide feedback to the hospice team regarding patient/family needs and coping behaviors.
4. To provide bereavement follow-up to family or significant others.

Volunteers in administrative support

Volunteers in administrative support are the second largest category of volunteer involvement in hospice (approximately 40% of hours). These volunteers perform a wide variety of office and support functions including answering the phone, performing other clerical duties (e.g., typing, filing, duplicating, collating, and mailing), and assisting with a variety of special administrative support projects.

Volunteers in community education and fund development

Iowa City Hospice was founded on the premise that anyone affected by a terminal illness have access to hospice care.  The Friends help keep this mission alive.  The Friends are hospice ambassadors in the community supporting the development and continued viability of Iowa City Hospice by promoting a positive public image and providing opportunities for the community to contribute funds or services to support hospice care.

How Might I Be
Involved as an
Iowa City Hospice Volunteer?

Individuals come to hospice for a variety of reasons and with a wealth of gifts and skills. Ellie Garrett shares with us some of her experiences between January 1990 and December 1992:

"Seeing a friend of mine in Des Moines bring hospice into her home to help her care for her step-father convinced me that this was something I just might be able to do...be a Hospice volunteer. "My training took place in the fall of 1989....My opportunities for working with hospice came rather slowly at first, but gradually I was called upon more and more. I have now been involved in the care of 15 different patients, one for only a few days and others for many months. (With some time off for vacations and trips.) In these past two years I have done a variety of things in my own volunteering. I have washed dishes, answered phones, vacuumed floors, and prepared meals. (My first meal was breakfast for a woman with lung cancer. When I asked her what would taste good to her, she responded immediately with. `I'll have two strips of bacon, fried crisp, two fried eggs over easy, two pieces of white toast with butter and strawberry jelly, a glass of orange juice, and a cup of coffee, cream but not sugar.'

"I've office-sat at the Hospice House. I've helped with road races and baked muffins and cookies for the races. I've mended nightgowns, filled birdbath and feeder, changed babies, written letters, and driven patients to and from the doctor's office.

"I've driven patients home from the hospital, even learning how to maneuver a very large lady and her oxygen tank attached, up the back steps into her home. (She wasn't the only one gasping for breath!)

"I've folded laundry, house-sat during a memorial service, and read Shel Silverstein's Where the Sidewalk Ends, to a very sick woman who was barely aware that I was there, but who smiled at all the appropriate places.

"I've taken a patient from the doctor's office to emergency at Mercy Hospital, dropped off and picked up prescriptions, dressed patients, and watered parched plants--which, I might add, is one thing which always needs doing in hospice homes.

"I've fed weekly lunches to a patient in a Care Center who turned out to be a woman who, as a young girl, had been a member of a church my husband served in Riverside. She ate so slowly that the regular help could not spend the time that it took to feed her.

"I've arranged for a yard to be raked for a man who was very bothered that his lawn looked so bad and that he couldn't get out there and do it himself. I carried out a lawn chair and helped him to where he could sit and supervise.

"I have fed dogs, let dogs out; let dogs back in, and retrieved a partial plate from the mouth of a dog that had found it on the sofabed where the man had been napping.

"I've sent cards and notes when away on vacation; attended visitations and memorial services' followed up with bereavement contacts.

"And I've listened and listened and listened some more....

"As I drive my little blue Nova around Iowa City, on my usual routes and back home again, there are times when I find that certain streets are beckoning me, causing me to veer off course just a block or two so I could drive one more time by a particular house where for a brief period of time, I became a part of that family, where I felt cherished, and very, very necessary. And that, my friends, is what being a Hospice Volunteer is all about."

Ellie Garret, Hospice Volunteer, Fall Class 1989

Thank you, Ellie. You have made a difference.

Volunteer Training
and Education

A Volunteer Training class is required for individuals that choose to work directly with hospice patients and families. Training classes are held several times a year in various locations in the Iowa City Hospice service area. Check our calendar or e-mail us for dates, times, and places. The 16-hour course explains the roles and responsibilities that a volunteer will be undertaking, including:

1. To explore the volunteer's own attitudes about death, loss and terminal illness.
2. To identify feelings and behavior associated with the dying and grieving process.
3. To understand hospice concepts and models of care
4. To develop skills in communication (e.g., listening, supporting).
5. To discuss the role of the volunteer within the hospice interdisciplinary team.
6. To learn when it is necessary/appropriate to alert other members of the hospice interdisciplinary team.
7. To develop skills in outreach.
8. To develop skills in bereavement support and follow-up.
9. To learn procedures for documentation (timesheets).
10. To learn appropriate safety procedures, ethical concerns and any organizational policies.
11. To define future provisions for volunteer supervision, support, and continuing education (quarterly in-service).

How Can I Set Up a Volunteer Training
in My Community?

Iowa City Hospice volunteers are especially needed in communities outside Iowa City/Coralville, including those in the following counties: Cedar, Iowa, Louisa, Muscatine and Washington.

Do you know of people in your community who would like to become Iowa City Hospice volunteers? 

Iowa City Hospice simply needs six or more trainees in order to schedule a training session.  See the description in the above section for more information about training or contact Jennifer Kross, Iowa City Hospice volunteer and education coordinator at 319-688-4200, 800-897-3052 ext. 125, or jennifer.kross@iowacityhospice.org.