What Role Do Volunteers Play in Hospice Care?
Volunteers Are Essential to Hospice Care
We believe that volunteering makes the biggest difference in hospice care. Our volunteers not only support our patients but also their families and our full-time staff. Our volunteers can provide care, companionship, and conversation with everyone. We like to focus on increasing the quality of life of anyone who is part of our community, especially our clients. We believe that our volunteer program helps emphasize our patient-focused level of care. Our volunteers have many different roles at Bayou City Hospice that allow us to provide this level of care and go above and beyond. Below are a few examples of what you can expect from our volunteers.
Provide Companionship And Support
Our volunteers provide companionship and support to our patients, their families, and our staff. They listen, engage, and offer a supporting ear to anyone who is in need. Many of our patients enjoy having visitors around whom they can talk to and share stories with. This gives them a sense of purpose and makes them feel less lonely. Being in hospice can be a very lonely and emotional time. Having daily interactions with people can help clients feel like they have a community behind them during a time of need. This can help increase the quality of life in our clients. We strive to make sure that every day is exciting for our hospice patients. Our hospice volunteers are able to provide them with different daily experiences and conversations. This can be especially helpful and bring ease to the family of our hospice clients and their main caregivers. When we offer support and companionship, we are about to give them a break and allow them to take time for themselves. They trust that we will provide them the care and attention as if they were part of our own family. This helps them relax and know that their loved one is never alone and will always be cared for even if they are not present.
Become A Patient Visitor
Becoming a hospice volunteer and visiting our patents can be a very rewarding job. We pair all of our patients with volunteers so everyone can have a positive volunteer experience. Our volunteers can help our clients with so many things. Sometimes, that may mean keeping them company by helping them read or write. Your patient may also want to spend time with you by watching TV or doing an activity. You simply being there to provide them companionship does more than you may realize.
Our Volunteers Keep Everyone Happy
Aside from visiting hospice patients, our volunteers like to entertain our patients and their families in many ways. Quite often, you will find some of our volunteers playing musical instruments for our clients. Many people love to listen to music and sing along to it. Some of our other hospice volunteers like to paint murals on our patients’ windows. Our clients love seeing the creative masterpieces that are painted just for them. Fun activities such as these help keep the excitement of every day in the front of their minds.
Provide Office And Administration Assistance
In addition to patient-focused volunteers, we always need help handling administration work. We have volunteer positions for those who are great with organization and are more task-oriented. These jobs are just as important as providing care to our patients. We are always looking for individuals who can help upload documents, put together information packets, help with general filing, and so much more. These tasks help make Bayou City Hospice stay organized so we can provide the best care to our patients. We wouldn’t be able to do it without our volunteers.
Helping With Errands
There are some instances where we may need a volunteer to run errands for our patients. No task is too small, and we believe this is what sets us apart from other hospice care. We prioritize the health and happiness of everyone on our team. We want to take care of everyone and will execute any task that a patient may request.
Nervous About Hospice Volunteering?
We understand that hospice volunteering can be very intimidating at the beginning. We pride ourselves on making sure everyone in our volunteer program has a positive experience. We want to help you feel comfortable and make sure that we use the skills that you want to bring and offer to our community. We offer training for all our hospice volunteer areas. We want to ensure that you feel well prepared going into your volunteer work and will work with you through every step of training. After your training is complete, we will be here to provide additional support if you ever need it.
Becoming A Volunteer Is Easy!
If you are interested in any of the roles above, you may want to consider applying for a volunteer position at Bayou Hospice. We have an easy online application for you to fill out and our onboarding process does not take long. After you submit, we will follow up with you for any extra details. Once your application is reviewed, you will enter an orientation process which will include a background check. From there you will have orientation, and we will begin training you in the volunteer area that you are most interested in.
Interested In Learning More About Becoming a Volunteer?
Give Bayou City Hospice a call today to learn more about how you can help. We are always looking for more helping hands that can make a difference within our community. Please let us know if you have any questions or if we can help direct you to the volunteer opportunity that is right for you. We look forward to welcoming you to our family at Bayou City Hospice!