Medical Social workers have long been engrained within hospices; their role is highly skilled, complex and crucial to the patients and families they support.
Hospice Social Workers help patients, and those important to them come to terms with the enormity of facing their or their loved one’s approaching end of life journey. They give social, spiritual, and psychosocial support. They can advise on housing and finance. They find solutions for safeguarding issues. They are counselors and advocates between systems and the often-confusing complex healthcare continuum. At the end of life, they provide bereavement support and guidance for families.
Each March, we celebrate Social Work Month and our Exceptional team of Careline Social Workers. As the month comes to a close, we wanted to spotlight this essential role and what it is like to walk a day in their shoes.
Hospice Social Worker Amanda has made an impact in the lives of so many by providing care, comfort, and support to our patients and families. We recently spent a day with her asking questions and observing the role of hospice social work. Here is what we learned.
Day-to-Day Hospice Social Work
A Hospice Social Workers’ core responsibilities include conducting psychosocial assessments, coordinating care, intervening and advocating in patient crisis situations, and educating patients and families about their treatment plan and the available resources and support systems. Each patient’s needs and situations can frequently change during end-of-life care. As their social worker, Amanda guides and supports patients and families through their situations with dignity and respect. Amanda shared that it is her goal to lessen the burden and ensure each person she meets knows that they truly matter.
Support for Patients and Families
During our time with Amanda, her to-do list included assisting a patient whose apartment building caught on fire. The patient was not hurt but needed a new living arrangement. Amanda provided education and resources to the patient and family and assisted in coordinating a transfer to a new care option.
In the meantime, we met with a family visiting their father for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic had restricted them from entering the facility he was living in. Amanda laughed and cried with them during the reunion. After communicating through electronic screens for months, the family stated that Amanda had become an extension of their family. Amanda shared that it was the most content she had seen all of them in months and that “Moments like these are the reason I chose Hospice as my specialty. Even if for a brief time, we [social workers] really have the ability to make a positive difference in the lives of our patients and families.”
“There are sad times, but hospice isn’t always about sadness,” says Amanda. “In fact, we [social workers] stay focused on the positive and help our patients and families do the same as much as possible. There is joy in listening to life stories, being invited to share in family moments, and meeting all kinds of really wonderful people. This role gives me a renewed appreciation every day for the people and things in my life that are important.”
A Passion for Person-Centered Care
Hospice social work is a challenging field. Social workers interact each day with individuals in difficult emotional situations, helping them cope with change and loss. At the same time, the intimate interactions that hospice social workers experience with patients and their families can be incredibly enriching. Social workers are positioned to voice concerns for those who are unable to be their advocates. They can help vulnerable patients and families find resources they might not otherwise have been able to locate independently. It provides the chance to form connections with people in need and significantly impact their psychological and emotional well-being.
Hospice social workers play many roles in the span of one day, changing their approach based on each patient and family’s immediate needs. Some may need help with caregiving issues or living situations, while others need help for everything from admission to hospice to grief counseling. At each step in the process, social workers help provide support and ensure that the end-of-life journey is full of comfort and meaning.