Care Coordination
As skilled and experienced Care Coordinators, we are available to meet with every
new client of Heart House. Together we explore your needs and concerns, and help
you to address how best to manage these.
Our support of clients, families and caregivers is based on our philosophy of COMPANIONING.
This includes:
- Coping with serious illness
- Communicating with loved ones
- Understanding and using the health care system
- Providing information and ADVOCACY
- Referring to other resources
- Facilitating communication amongst team members
- Planning for the future
- Comfort and support
Companioning
The following are words taken from Greg Yoder's book, Companioning the Dying.
Yoder, Greg. Companioning the Dying; A Soulful Guide for Caregivers,
Companion Press, Fort Collins, CO. 2005.
In many ways caring for the dying is no different than supporting people who are
not dying. Healthy and terminally ill people yearn alike to be listened to and understood
without judgment.
A big part of companioning is the mystery in companioning. We are humble guests
in a story line already in progress.
Not all want the answers to the questions they ask.
When helping those search for answers and meaning please don't take the mystery
out of the mystery.
As companions we need to be OK if patients never completely feel organized, resolved,
reconciled or settled about leaving this world.
Some do, but many don't.
Tenet 1: Companioning is about honoring all parts of the spirit; it is not about
focusing only on intellect.
Tenet 2: Companioning is more about curiosity; less about our expertise. The client
is the EXPERT not us. The clients are here to teach us, not us to teach them. Use
the Teach Me method. Defer to the wisdom of those we support.
Tenet 3: Companioning is about walking along side; Less about leading or being led.
Each person facing death walks thru the experience at their own pace, for some it
may be steady for others the tempo changes. Physical symptoms, environment, personality,
age, life experience and spirituality may impact speed and timing.
Tenet 4: Companioning is more about being still; Not always about urgent movement
forward.
Tenet 5: Companioning the dying means discovering the gifts of sacred silence. It
does not mean filling up every moment with talk.
Tenet 6: Companioning is about being present in another's emotional and spiritual
pain; not taking away or fixing it.
Tenet 7: Companioning is about respecting disorder and confusion; not imposing order
and logic.
Tenet 8: Companioning is about going into the wilderness of the Soul with another;
it is not about thinking you are responsible for finding a way out.
There is not right or wrong. Their meaning is the only one that matters.