September 20, 2019 / Sarah Girling, MSW
“Volunteers
do not necessarily have the time; they just have the heart”
-Elizabeth
Andrew
Volunteers hold a very special place in hospice. In fact, the idea of hospice was born once volunteers began dedicating their time to helping others navigate a difficult and vital life transition. That is why Faith and Hope holds our volunteers on a high pedestal. We would not be where we are today without their selfless dedication towards continuing what our past role models created so many years ago.
People decide to volunteer within hospice for many different reasons. One of the most common reasons is because they have had a personal experience of a loved one that utilized hospice services, which turned into an overall compassionate encounter. Having a loved one depart from us is never an easy experience. The ones that offer compassionate care during that time is what helps make it that much more bearable as we weather the storm together. Volunteering is their way of expressing gratitude and replicating the kindness they received through hospice staff. We do recommend to wait at least a year after your loved one has passed on before volunteering. The reason being is that progressing through the grieving process is much more prevalent during that first year. It could make it harder for a volunteer to navigate their own emotions of grief if taking on too much right away. Waiting a certain amount of time will ultimately make the volunteering experience much more rewarding for both you, the patients, and their loved ones.
Another reason we hear from our volunteers is that they felt a higher calling to donate their time within hospice because they wanted to learn more about the end-of-life process. As we all know, that process is special to each patient and family with no story being the same. However, there are common threads that connect those stories, which is what makes volunteering unique within itself. We hope our volunteers implement that connection into their own personal lives in order to create a chain reaction of kindness and humility. It really does take just one person to make a lasting impact within their communities so why not start by helping others during one of the most difficult times of their lives. It is important to remember that our patients and families are creating a lasting impact on the volunteer as well. Hence, creating memories and lessons that will stay with everyone for a lifetime.
If you are interested in becoming a volunteer, please reach out and let us know. We love hearing about your experiences and would appreciate any feedback on how we and our volunteers helped you and your family through this journey. All of our volunteers attend an orientation and receive on going supportive care through our agency. Volunteers is what hospice was built on and therefore, will forever remain an integral part of how we provide exceptional care.
Remember, as Ann Richardson said, “We cannot change the outcome, but we can affect the journey.”
~
If you or someone you know is interested in becoming a hospice volunteer,
please contact our Volunteer Coordinator, Sarah Girling, MSW. You can reach her
at 818-559-1460 or by email [email protected]
Faith and Hope Hospice
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers).
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs. There may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to