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Hospice and Palliative Care volunteer opportunities include:
Office Clerical Support
Utilize your computer and office skills by helping with the behind-the-scenes work that keeps the hospice program running smoothly. The office staff at the inpatient hospice center and at the administrative offices need help with many different tasks such as data entry, filing, patient charts, copying, putting packets together, stuffing envelopes and much more.
Patient Care Volunteers
Provide companionship, along with practical, emotional and spiritual support to patients, as well as respite for the caregivers. Care is provided in patients' private homes, retirement homes, adult family homes and skilled nursing facilities, as well as in our inpatient hospice center. Volunteers are able to determine in which areas of King and Snohomish counties they would like to serve.
Animal Assisted Therapy
This program uses teams of registered therapy animals trained by the Delta Society's Pet Partner Program, trained volunteers and staff to offer gentle touch and compassionate care to Evergreen hospice patients and their families at the Hospice Center. For more information on how to become a registered Pet Partner team, please visit the Delta Society webpage www.deltasociety.org.
Special Needs "Needlework"
People who do not have the time or mobility to volunteer at the center or in homes may still contribute by using their needlework skills. We have a continuous need for quilts, lap blankets, catheter bag covers, caps, mittens, etc. We have found these handmade gifts to be very comforting and touching to the patients and their families. The blankets, in particular, become treasured keepsakes for the families after their loved one dies. If you are interested in contributing to the comfort of our patients in this way, please contact the hospice volunteer coordinators for specifications of the items.
Compassionate Touch
Provides approved conventional and complementary compassionate touch therapies to hospice patients. One of the many ways dying patients may feel isolated from the world is the loss of human touch. All therapies are based on quality of life and work towards reducing pain and anxiety, as well as increasing comfort. These modalities include hands-on techniques, energy-based therapies, and massage. Volunteers must have appropriate education, certification or licensure upon starting volunteer service.
Massage Volunteers
Massage is the most requested form of Compassionate Touch at Evergreen Hospice. Many patients spend a good part of their days immobile in a recliner or bed and become contracted and stiff; some patients develop severe, painful contractures, all which may benefit from massage therapy. Massage volunteers must have appropriate education and licensure upon starting volunteer service.
Bereavement
Volunteers help meet the grief and bereavement needs of individuals and their families as a result of the death of a loved one. Phone volunteers are responsible for telephone support to the bereaved, who are assessed by hospice social workers as having low-to-moderate grief risks. Phone volunteers work a 2-4 hour shift making phone calls.
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