Share What Your Hospice Organization Is Doing to Promote Cultural Diversity

Posted by Frances Shani Parker on April 21, 2009 at 9:50pm
Julie Cranz Hospice Volunteer Coordinator Hospice of Western Kentucky Owensboro, KY http://www.hospiceohiovalley.org/ Our Hospice started an ACCESS committee in order to identify, educate, and serve populations that we do not currently serve. We have contacted the local NAACP president, who has forwarded information about us to all minority churches in our city. We will be making a presentation at an NAACP meeting and offering free health screenings at local minority churches. We also changed the photos on our brochures to ensure that a diverse population is represented. Keep up the good work, Hospice of Western Kentucky! Frances Shani Parker

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  • Frances Shani Parker April 22, 2009 at 2:25pm
    This was emailed to me by Monica Escalante.

    Monica Escalante
    VP of Volunteers, Community Education and Outreach
    Montgomery Hospice
    Rockville, MD
    www.montgomeryhospice.org

    We have done quite a bit regarding cultural diversity. We have prioritized the work within the agency. MH has diverse staff, and our senior management is also very diverse (ethnically and also in terms of professional backgrounds and experience). Developing cultural competency is an important part of staff orientation and we also have engaged our experienced staff in an annual discussion about culturally competent care. Finally, we have language interpretation services provided over the phone available 24/7.

    For outreach per se, we have done the following:

    Spanish Outreach
    We offered bereavement groups, translated many flyers, and have a Spanish information page on our website (with several articles).http://www.montgomeryhospice.org/patients/indexSPANISH.php
    We also participate in the Latino Health initiative and many festivals they organize.

    Asian Outreach
    We participate in health fairs for all minority groups. Last year, we connected with a series on “Working with Asian Populations at End of Life” organized by a truly influential grass roots association.

    African American Outreach
    A bereavement counselor attends the Black Ministers conference on a monthly basis and our Manager of Outreach has a MH booth at every African American event in the county.

    We are in constant communication and provide helpful information to the faith community (we have a huge email list) and through them we reach another diverse segment of the population.

    All our communications, flyers and other tools are tested for cultural competency; we do that using our own diverse staff who happen to love providing this kind of feedback.
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