Compassionate, caring hospice volunteers are always needed. Your maturity, outgoing personality and listening skills can make all the difference to families facing a life-limiting illness.
Our hospice volunteer opportunities include:
Patient Care Volunteers
Patient care volunteers provide emotional support and companionship to hospice patients and families during an often stressful time. Volunteers make visits to homes, long-term care facilities and our in-patient hospice unit, and they provide the gift of presence. This might mean reading to patients, preparing a snack, providing companionship or encouraging them to talk about their life. Volunteers also provide a few hours of respite to weary caregivers. We seek individuals who are emotionally mature, flexible and compassionate to join our team. No prior experience is needed as our comprehensive training program prepares volunteers for their new role. Training sessions are offered during the day and evening hours for your convenience.
Healing Touch, Reflexology, Massage, Art and Music Therapy Volunteers
Individuals certified in reflexology, massage, Healing Touch, art, aroma or music therapy are invited to share their skills and become apart of our innovative complementary therapy program as they provide care and comfort to hospice patients and family caregivers. In hospice, people facing advanced disease often have symptoms related to the illness as well as stress-related symptoms. Our training program teaches others about the therapeutic value of complementary therapy while enabling volunteers to utilize existing skills in a variety of hospice settings. Therapists seeking national certification and additional clinical hours are also encouraged to volunteer to gain additional experience with our hospice staff
Pet Therapy
Our program utilizes certified therapy dogs and their owners to support the hospice patient in the long-term care setting. Pet therapy has been shown to increase pain tolerance, reduce stress, lower blood pressure and bring smiles. It is especially useful in the hospice setting for patients who have withdrawn from the people around them but find interacting with an animal comforting. If you are considering volunteering your certified dog, do consider your pet’s temperament. A pet therapy animal should be calm and able to tolerate sudden loud noises and groping hands. The animal should also be accepting of friendly strangers and be able to sit calmly to be touched and pet. Older pets typically make the best hospice volunteers. Pet owners receive training to understand the unique needs of hospice patients and families.
Office Volunteers
Addressing envelopes, filing, light typing, assembling mailings, admission packets and training manuals. Each day is different for people who are interested in utilizing their skills as one of our office volunteers. Office volunteers provide the glue in our organization, doing projects large and small in our Townsend Road office and on our in-patient hospice unit at Holy Redeemer Hospital in Meadowbrook, PA. All training is provided to enable office volunteers to be self-sufficient and a contributing member of our hospice team.
For more information, contact the Volunteer Services Office at 215-698-3737 or via e-mail.