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Volunteer Training
If you’re interested in becoming a volunteer for Arbor Hospice and meet the requirements detailed below, you will receive 8 hours of general training followed by ongoing education throughout the year and interest specific modules which you can choose to take, such as pediatric volunteering, grief support volunteering, veteran to veteran volunteer visits and more. Depending on how you’d like to serve, we’ll be sure your training will support your success in your particular volunteer role.
General topics covered during volunteer training include:
- Introduction to hospice and palliative care
- Active listening and ways to improve communication
- Protection of patient/family rights, including confidentiality
- Knowledge of advance directives and powers of attorney
- Respecting cultural differences
- Physiological, psychosocial and spiritual aspects of end of live care
- The healing process
Volunteer Requirements
Before submitting your volunteer application, please take a moment to consider whether volunteering with Arbor Hospice is right for you:
- The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid require that all hospice volunteers are fully vaccinated for COVID-19 or have an approved medical or religious exemption.
- Volunteers are asked to commit at least one year of service to Arbor Hospice. Continuity of care is important to our patients and families, therefore our volunteer opportunities are considered long-term, and not suited for those looking for temporary or summer-only volunteering.
- Because our patients reside throughout Washtenaw, Livingston, Lenawee, Jackson, and Monroe counties, our volunteer opportunities are best suited to those with their own transportation. We cannot guarantee that volunteer opportunities will be available on a bus route that works for you.
- Our volunteer opportunities are best for those with morning and afternoon availability, as that is when patients and families are most in need of visitors.
- All volunteers are required to complete a volunteer orientation course, which can be accessed online from home at your convenience.
- All volunteers providing support for our patients are required to have annual TB testing to meet compliance requirements.
- The State of Michigan Department of Community Health requires various criminal background checks for hospice volunteers, and that all volunteers are fingerprinted.
To honor the grieving process, volunteers are asked to wait a year after the death of a loved one before becoming an Arbor Hospice volunteer.