Leaders in end-of-life and palliative care, including SWHPN Chair Grace Christ and board member Judy Peres, convened in Washington last week to discuss The Transformation Project: A New Initiative to Substantially Improve Advanced Illness Care. The project is co-directed by Myra Christopher, President and CEO of the Center for Practical Bioethics, and Bill Novelli, Professor at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University and former CEO of AARP. SWHPN board member Judy Peres is deputy director of the project.

“The purpose of the initiative is to develop a national, broad-based coalition to engage the American public and truly reform care for the seriously ill and dying.” —Myra Christopher.

In attendance at the D.C. meeting were representatives of multiple disciplines and organizations in palliative, hospice and end-of-life care.

The Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which funds this project, states that it is working “to bring Americans together to find sensible, long-term solutions that transcend age, party lines and ideological divides in order to achieve real results.

Read the full press release.

Dr. Robert Butler (83), Pulitzer Prize winning author of Why Survive? Being Old in America (Harper & Row, 1975), died Sunday, July 4, in New York City of acute leukemia. Butler, a psychiatrist, idealist and scholar, contributed much to the field of aging, coining the term “ageism” to describe discrimination against the elderly, and the phrase “life review” to describe elders’ experience reliving past memories. His many accolades include serving as the founding director of the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health, heading the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry, the Alzheimer’s Disease Association and the International Longevity Center. Moreover, Butler was one of the U.S.’s strongest advocates for the elderly in political, social and institutional forums.

SWHPN owes much to Robert Butler for the role he played in advocating for our initiative as a board member with the Project on Death in America at the Open Society Institute. His work and ideals will continue to inspire scholars, practitioners, aging Americans and their families for years to come. He is survived by his daughters, Christine Butler, Carole Butler Hall, Cynthia Butler and Alexandra Butler, and six grandchildren. Please join us in remembering his great contribution to our field.

Barbara Monroe, Chief Executive of St. Christopher’s Hospice in London has been appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen’s Birthday 2010 Honours List. SWHPN congratulates Dame Barbara Monroe on her well-deserved achievement and on her many years of service providing quality and compassionate palliative care.

Please join the SWHPN Executive Committee in extending special thanks to SWHPN Board Member Tracy Schroepfer for helping to make the Hear from the Experts Series on the SWHPN-LHP discussion forum a great success.

Over the past few months, Tracy has coordinated the series and brought expert content to our members on topics such as Palliative Care in the VA, Telehealth in Palliative Care, Cultural Competence in Hospice and this month’s Palliative Care in Nursing Homes. Tracy is Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Social Work and Co-Director of the Cancer Health Disparities Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is an avid palliative care researcher and an active and vital member of the SWHPN Board and Executive Committee. Read Tracy’s profile on swhpn.org.

Tracy’s efforts and the contributions of our featured experts have added rich content and discussion to our online forum. We look forward to valuable discussion in the future and encourage members to log in, join the discussion, and consult our experts.

No Good Deed: A story of medicine, murder accusations and the debate over how we die. Lewis Mitchell Cohen, MD. Harper Collins, 2010.

Transforming Palliative Care in Nursing Homes: The Social Work Role. Edited by SWHPN Board Member Mercedes Bern-Klug. Columbia University Press, 2010.

Months to Live, Palliative Care Doctor Fought for Life, New York Times, April 3, 2010.

Palliative Care Programs Continue Rapid Growth in U.S. Hospitals, CAPC, April 5, 2010.

The Pain of Losing a Spouse is Singular, Jane Brody, New York Times, April 6, 2010.

Katie Couric on How Children Mourn, CBS Sunday Morning, April 11, 2010.

The International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care (IAHPC) will provide 10 scholarships to palliative care workers from developing countries to attend the 18th International Congress in Montréal on October 5-8, 2010. The congress organizers have put together a comprehensive program with sessions in English, French and Spanish. Click here to see the Congress program. The deadline to submit posters to the congress is May 30, 2010.

Applications are accepted from individuals from all health professions, and an effort will be made to have a balanced regional representation. Palliative care workers from Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa are welcome to apply. Click here for information and eligibility criteria for travelling grants. The deadline to apply for this traveling scholarship is July 15, 2010.

Sharing Our Knowledge: Publishing in Journals, the first SWHPN-hosted webinar, is now available FREE for SWHPN members as a video download. This download is also available for purchase by non-members.

This download features the practical nuts and bolts of translating practice experiences into manuscripts for submission to a social work journal including the Journal of Social Work in End-of-Life and Palliative Care (JSWEOL). Hear and view presentations from Ellen Csikai, JSWEOL Editor; Grace Christ, SWHPN Board Chair; and moderator Susan Blacker, Director of Cancer Services, Planning and Performance at St. Michael’s Hospital. Read more on swhpn.org.

Stay tuned for future webinars. The planning process is under way for a series featuring our Hear from the Experts contributors. Become a SWHPN Member for these exclusive webinars, free access to the Journal of Social Work in End-of-Life and Palliative Care and other member benefits.

The Journal of Social Work in End-of-Life and Palliative Care has issued a call for manuscripts for a special thematic issue on “Pediatric Issues in Palliative and End-of-Life Care”

Manuscripts for this issue are due by September 15, 2010.

A range of psychosocial issues are experienced when children are affected by chronic or life-limiting illness; not the least of which is the effect on the entire family system. For this special thematic issue, manuscripts submitted for consideration could include a range of issues involving children and families dealing with chronic or life-limiting illnesses, such as use of palliative care or hospice care, pain management issues with children; plan of care/decision-making issues; working with children and families of diverse cultural populations, family members’ anticipatory grief/ bereavement; children’s grief/bereavement related to sibling or parent death, suicide or other traumatic death; unique developmental issues for children who are dying, their siblings and the impact on family development (age appropriate interventions, sibling, school and peer issues); professional caregiver issues or any other related topic.

Manuscripts should address practice implications for social work/mental health professionals regarding the issue identified.

Manuscripts must follow APA style of writing and should be no more than 20-25 pages (longer manuscripts may be considered).   Address questions about this call (such as whether your topic/idea is appropriate) to Ellen L. Csikai, editor at 205-348-4447 or ecsikai@sw.ua.edu

Submissions should be sent electronically to:

Ellen L. Csikai, Ph.D

ecsikai@sw.ua.edu

The University of Alabama, School of Social Work

Box 870314, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0314

Read the press release from “Social Work Leadership in Palliative Care: Developing Family & Caregiver Support Intervention Models,” the 3rd SWHPN Preconference to the AAHPM/HPNA Annual Assembly.

PRESS RELEASE
Forum Shows Social Workers’ Successes in Palliative Care Teams

March 3, 2010—Social Work Leadership in Palliative Care: Developing Family & Caregiver Support Intervention Models, the 3rd SWHPN Preconference to the AAHPM/HPNA Annual Assembly was held Wednesday, March 3, 2010, 8:00AM to 5:00PM EST, in Boston, MA. At the Preconference, Susan Blacker, MSW, RSW, Director of Cancer Services, Planning and Performance at St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, received the 2010 Social Work Leadership Award. Blacker presented on quality improvement in palliative care and described specific care coordination projects in which social workers took leadership as well as collaborative roles in effectively demonstrating improvements in quality of care. Approximately 80 attendees heard from panels on issues of grief and bereavement, diversity in hospice and palliative care, training and research interventions, and social work roles in palliative care teams.

The featured panels generated spirited discussion on current perceptions among attendees from a wide range of practice, research and academic settings, who described their success as leaders in their profession. Karen Kayser moderated a panel on innovations and opportunities in training and research, presenting the growing array of opportunities for education and research in hospice and palliative care social work. Panelists Joan Berzoff, Dan Gardner, Barbara Jones, and Gary Stein emphasized the need to develop additional graduate and post graduate training programs. There is also a need to create social work training fellowships and grants and develop more research capacity.

The diversity panel, moderated by SWHPN Board Member Karen Bullock, discussed the impact of culturally based interventions in hospice and palliative care, touching on issues of access to care, patients’ trust, and health disparities. Bullock, along with panelists Karen Kayser and Ernest Aguilar, presented the need for a broader and more complex understanding of cultural differences to improve care. The speakers highlighted the ways in which language and current interpretations of minorities and majorities can compound feelings of marginalization and otherness in cultural and ethnic groups. Karen Kayser and Karen Bullock described their ongoing research on improving access and reducing health disparities in diverse communities.

The grief and bereavement panel moderated by SWHPN Chair Grace Christ presented innovations in bereavement care. Panelists Kim Kaufman and Maria Trozzi described the emerging role of children’s bereavement camps and children’s bereavement groups, highlighting the ongoing effort to evaluate their effectiveness. Christ stressed the importance of contextual as well as intrinsic factors in shaping the grief experience and trajectory, including trauma, delayed mourning, and varied personal experiences. Panelist Joan Berzoff spoke of loss-related growth, resilience and positive activities stemming from the bereavement process. All panelists agreed and demonstrated that individual trajectories may vary and that mourning does not always fit in to prescribed models.

Conference organizers and featured panelists were particularly impressed with responses to the panel on social work roles and the palliative care team, moderated by SWHPN Vice Chair Gary Stein and featuring Philip Higgins, Amy Bauer, Bill Mejia and Marsha Joselow. Panelists described the increased comfort level social workers demonstrated in their expanded roles on palliative care teams, including their ease stepping into leadership roles, triaging, interdisciplinary consulting and conflict management. Still, there is an apparent need for social workers to take the initiative in assuming leadership and defining their role and tasks as members of interdisciplinary teams. While it was refreshing to hear that so many social workers have been successful in stepping into these roles, attendees also voiced a need for additional guidelines to further clarify effective strategies and approaches for implementing social work interventions within a palliative care team. Skills for managing interprofessional relationships were also a major topic at the conference.

For a complete list of panels and speakers featured at the conference, download the agenda. Audio recordings will be made available soon on the SWHPN Member Dashboard, where members can also access audio and video recordings from previous SWHPN conferences.

SWHPN is currently planning a fourth annual conference in February 2011 in Vancouver. Stay tuned to swhpn.org for information.