We help facilitate conversations to create the best care approach for each individual.
We also offer custom training for professionals and workshops for the general public.
Facilitating Conversations
We help adults and their families explore personal goals for living and long-term care in a safe, intimate space. The 3 goals for our conversation are:
- Learn what matters most to the individual: what does living well look like to them?
- Ensure they get the medical care they want (and not receive treatment they don’t want)
- Prepare a family member or friend to advocate for them in the event they cannot speak for themselves.
Collaborating with Professionals
We will work as the advance care specialists on your team, and we invite referrals for patients who need advance care planning. We have experience working with professionals in clinical, hospital, assisted-living and long-term care settings. When collaborating with staff and administrators at the latter, we specialize in helping them welcome new residents into their facilities, so those residents can better feel at home.
We will also collaborate with attorneys in the preparation of advance directives. Niel's work in medical ethics as a teacher and consultant adds valuable insight to the decision-making process: Not only how to navigate the difficult choices that arise in complex and uncertain medical situations, but also how to communicate those choices so that medical treatment will meet your client's goals.
Education, Training and Workshops
Customized professional training
Trust and commitment are essential elements of a healing relationship. We help healthcare professionals learn to talk about end of life issues in a way that promotes those elements. We teach professionals that they can address the mortality of their patients without increasing the anxiety triggered by questions about medical care at the end of life such as code status, the use of ventilators or feeding tubes.
Our approach succeeds because professionals learn to collaborate with their patients by using a person-centered vocabulary and asking good questions. As they develop these practices, professionals create the space every patient needs to articulate his or her own goals of care. Ultimately, we teach professionals that curiosity and humility create the conditions for trust to grow and commitment to be felt. This helps healing relationships flourish.
Contact us to discuss how we can help you improve your professional skills or enhance the services your office provides. Several of our presentations are suitable for continuing education credits.
Workshops for the general public
We also lead classes and run workshops designed to meet the needs of the general public. Contact us to discuss how we can help the members of your community take care of each other.