Become A Volunteer
Make a difference in the lives of families in your community – become a Home Nursing Agency Hospice or Healing Patch volunteer
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Compassion lies at the core of Home Nursing Agency’s hospice program, and specially-trained volunteers are at the heart of hospice. Volunteers can make a profound difference by serving as an integral part of Home Nursing Agency’s hospice team of caring professionals who provide support, relief, and companionship for patients experiencing life-limiting illnesses. Some of the qualities that lead an individual to become a hospice volunteer include: compassion, empathy, acceptance of others, flexibility, dedication, and commitment. Such qualities enable volunteers to provide relief to patients and their families as they deal with life’s limiting illnesses.
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What does a hospice volunteer do?
Home Nursing Agency hospice volunteers:
- Show compassion for and provide support to patients of all ages and families, as well as fellow volunteers.
- Are emotionally present and listen to people who are dealing with physical and emotional pain.
- Write letters, read, talk or listen, and provide other supportive acts of kindness.
- Provide relief to family members.
- Report responses of patients and families to hospice staff.
- Provide administrative support in the hospice office.
- Work as part of the hospice team.
- Interact with various people from different ethnic, socioeconomic and religious backgrounds.
- Are responsible and dependable.
- Complete volunteer training.
- Complete regular inservices.
Please note: We encourage surviving family members to wait a minimum of one year following the death of a close loved-one before serving as an active hospice volunteer.
What is Home Nursing Agency’s Healing Patch?
Home Nursing Agency’s Healing Patch offers a soft place to fall for children and their families who have lost a loved one. A free service for children of preschool age through 18 years, the Healing Patch is a safe environment where children and their families can discover they are not alone in their grief by interacting with others who have encountered similar losses.
Why are volunteers so essential?
Volunteers are the heart of the Healing Patch. Without them, these free services could not exist for the grieving children and families of our community. It takes a special type of person to absorb the tragic stories children share at the Healing Patch. While volunteers must understand they are unable to “fix” what has happened, volunteers are able to help bring hope and healing back into the life of a child.
Could you be a Healing Patch volunteer?
The qualities that lead an individual to be a volunteer in the first place — compassion, empathy, acceptance of others, flexibility, dedication and commitment — are the same qualities that enable volunteers to support families in their journey through grief.
Healing Patch volunteers must:
- Be able to interact with people from different ethnic, socioeconomic and religious backgrounds.
- Be emotionally present and actively listen to people who are dealing with emotional pain.
- Have compassion for and provide support to grieving families, as well as to fellow volunteers.
- Be responsible and dependable.
- Be able to work in teams with other individuals.
- Participate in and complete volunteer trainings.
- Be available to participate in all scheduled meetings.
- Be at least 21 years old.
How can you become a hospice or Healing Patch volunteer?
If you are interested in making a profound difference by becoming a hospice or Healing Patch volunteer, please apply online or contact Lou Kensinger, Home Nursing Agency Hospice Volunteer Coordinator, at 1-800-445-6262 ext. 4117 or Patty Poet-Lajoie, Home Nursing Agency Hospice Volunteer Coordinator, at 1-800-445-6262 ext. 4119.
For a printable version of the volunteer application, click here.
If you would like to apply online, click here.
