Conversations About Caretm
Conversations About Care is a community driven initiative aimed at encouraging public discourse about serious illness, end of life issues and caregiving through educational events and community discussion forums.
The Conversations About Care initiative provides a template that can be applied to any group or organization wishing to do community end of life education.
The model utilizes a nationally recognized education initiative with the option to be implemented as a community campaign and/or through a two-phase process. Using inspirational film and other media allows consumers to “try-on” care scenarios and participate in community discussion forums (often through panel of experts) that gives attendees an opportunity to learn about the benefits of planning ahead for care.
Schedule an Event
Willow Publications offers information, tips and tools to help your group or organization engage potential community partners and to plan, market and execute a successful event. If you are interested to learn more about our services to host a Conversations About Care event, please contact us to discuss your ideas.
Why Community Education is Important
The Institute of Medicine (IOM) 2014 Dying in America report made five key findings and offered recommendations that included the need for Public Education and Engagement. The report suggests the need to manifest end of life care issues at the societal, community, family and individual level and recommends that efforts are needed to normalize conversations about death and dying.
Life Happens While We’re Making Other Plans. Americans say they want to choose the kind of care they want for themselves both in serious illness and at the end of their lives. Yet many of us will not receive the kind of care we hoped for, or die in a way or place of our choosing.
Thinking about the prospect of becoming seriously ill or dying makes us recoil. We simply want to avoid thinking or talking about these subjects that make us uncomfortable. Common thoughts are “It can’t happen to me” or “I’ll deal with it when the time comes.”
This is understandable because we are hardwired to survive. Asking us to think about our demise goes against what man has done since walking the earth. Yet avoiding difficult-to-discuss topics will not make them go away or render us immune.
Unnatural as it may seem, being human and susceptible to all the tragedies of life, the likelihood is good that at some point in our lives we will experience a debilitating disease, life-threatening event or be cast into a caregiving role.
The best we can do is to prepare ourselves so as to minimize the chance of an unwanted outcome or having to make gut-wrenching decisions for ourselves or loved ones in a crisis. Community education helps us all confront these issues proactively so we are better prepared to establish directives for our own care and to provide quality care for our loved ones.
End of LIfe Education 