Social Worker

LifeChoice Hospice offers patients suffering from severe diseases or terminal diagnoses medical care, and psychological, emotional, social, and spiritual support. Patients and families that require hospice care face various challenges that extend far beyond clinical care., Feelings of anger, worry, and despair that are caused by financial pressure,  physical suffering, social isolation, and familial strife are obstacles that our team of social workers can address.

What is a palliative care social worker?

Palliative care focuses on alleviating physical symptoms of a disease, which increases the quality of life and has even been seen to have life-prolonging results. Such services can be provided directly in a person’s home care, skilled nursing, or hospital settings.
LifeChoice Palliative care social workers care for an individual’s physical, mental, social, and spiritual well-being during all phases of sickness and follow the client from diagnosis until their goals are met. Our palliative care social workers may make home visits to assist the elderly and families in establishing successful palliative care at home. They may also serve as a liaison between patients and medical professionals.

Role and duties of hospice social workers at LifeChoice

Our social workers assist patients and their families in navigating end-of-life care planning, understanding their treatment plans of care, and being vocal about their needs. Social workers can give both patients and families a range of tools they need to manage the stress of debilitating physical illnesses and skilled assistance for handling emotional, familial, and financial dilemmas. , Social workers are experts in aiding patients and their families in overcoming crises and connecting to other support services. Our hospice workers are advocates for seniors and their families and can even provide referrals to services that are available to them both within and outside of hospice settings.
Hospice and palliative care provided by LifeChoice social work is difficult since it entails assisting individuals at difficult and stressful moments in their lives. Making close relationships with individuals, learning and celebrating their life experiences, and having a good influence on seniors and their families are some of the joys we may get.

What Does a Hospice or Palliative Care Social Worker Do at LifeChoice?

LifeChoice social workers’ primary responsibilities include conducting psychosocial assessments, coordinating care, providing counseling. Our social workers intervene in senior crises and provide education and resources to alleviate the heavy burdens that accompany end-of-life care. 

Care Coordination

The delivery of appropriate medical, psychological, and social care through the organization of primary and secondary care providers is characterized as care coordination. LifeChoice hospice social workers collaborate with a team of end-of-life experts to organize patients’ care. Our hospice and palliative care social workers are frequently the point of contact between multiple care providers and the interface between seniors and their treatment team. LifeChoice social workers in hospice and palliative care play an essential role in patient intake and discharge. They are often the team members that initiate an individual’s admission onto hospice or Palliative Care. Their psychosocial evaluation during the intake process is shared with the team for a plan of care that is tailored to the patient’s medical, spiritual, and psychosocial needs.  The social workers consistently communicate with the treatment team about patients’ ongoing needs.

Counseling and Psychotherapy

LifeChoice social workers offer emotional support, counseling, and psychotherapy to patients and their families dealing with psychological and emotional issues resulting from a terminal illness or severe chronic disease. To assist their patients in evaluating and managing their thoughts and emotions and overcoming various behavioral obstacles, our social workers may use a variety of clinical approaches.
Our social workers may utilize mindfulness-based stress reduction, cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, supportive psychotherapy, expressive arts therapy, and narrative therapy with their clients. 

Crisis Intervention

When patients or their loved ones are experiencing psychological or emotional crises, our social workers in the hospice and palliative care settings may intervene and give emergency psychological assistance. In general, crises are described as situations that generate a level of anguish that surpasses a person’s ability to handle the issue in the near term or with their own resources.
Qualifying occurrences vary for every person but may include the unexpected progression of a specific ailment, painful family disputes, neglect, physical assault, verbal abuse,  the emergence of suicidal aspirations, or any other issue that results in trauma in a client.
In these cases, LifeChoice hospice and palliative care social workers give immediate psychological support and counseling while simultaneously alerting and coordinating care services with the rest of a client’s care team.

Patient Education and Resource Navigation Services

LifeChoice social workers assist patients and families in understanding their treatment plans and the processes involved in hospice and palliative care.
The resource services of our social workers are frequently included in patients’ care plans because they help guarantee that patients and their families receive the support they require, even if it means reaching out beyond what palliative care services can provide. Our social workers assist individuals in locating local resources such as cancer or terminal disease support groups, free counseling programs, financial assistance entities, and religious communities for additional support. 

Meet Our Amazing Social Workers

They enter into times of crisis like knights in shining armor. Stoic, graceful, dignified, and esteemed; these Lionhearts are powerful with their insight and determined in their advocacy. Hospice social workers show the type of compassion and mercy towards their patients that puts them high up in a class of their own. We’ve had the honor to sit down with one of our very own noblewomen to discuss her miracle work!!

What led you to hospice work?
Sara – Growing up, I was extremely close with my grandparents. My grandfather was a WWII veteran. I was very proud of him. I would ride my bike up and down their street, and both he and my grandmother would keep a watchful eye on me. As the years caught up with them, our entire family was affected. My grandparents struggled through hip surgeries, prostate cancer, strokes, memory loss – we just did not have the resources we needed. I believe that has led me in the field I am in now. 

What Drives you as a social worker?
Sara– When my grandmother had her stroke, she declined rapidly. Watching my mother through that experience and witnessing how difficult it was on her as a caregiver is a memory that really fuels my efforts as a hospice social worker. 

What is the most challenging part of your career?
Sara– Timing is everything in end-of-life care and time itself is also our most limited resource. These are sensitive issues we are dealing with, and as a social worker, I have both patient and family goals to be fulfilled. Taking into account family dynamics, the family’s acceptance of their reality, and working on borrowed time can be very challenging. 

What is the best part of your career?
Sara– When I can take a person’s values and self-determination to create a plan of care that turns someone’s wishes into a reality, there is no greater reward in terms of end-of-life. 
LifeChoice is indebted to the work of our social workers. Thank you for everything! For an opportunity to meet Mariam, LifeChoice’s additional dedicated social worker, please follow us on our FB page!