In the end, it’s always about the people: hospice care and community development
David Henderson discusses how community development is an essential focus of the work of Strathcarron Hospice and how he brings the approach to his role as Lead Officer for the Compassionate Communities team, recognising the vital role that community plays in sustaining quality of life though the most difficult of circumstances.
‘Why on earth is a hospice doing community development?’. It was a mystery to me when I applied for the role of Lead Officer for the Compassionate Communities team over three years ago.
But in time, something did ‘click’. I had learned in my previous role, helping community groups apply community rights to use land and buildings, that what invariably sits behind a community’s interest in assets was not the buildings or land, but the people.
And often people who were isolated, perhaps through illness, or through death and grief, and for whom statutory services didn’t have the answers. It is well established in palliative care that those experiencing death and grief can also experience a form of social isolation. Friends and family can find it hard to know what to say, or fear saying the “wrong thing”, resulting in what some call a “social death”.
We can do better - together
The more I got to know Strathcarron, the more I understood that its community development focus is in fact, essential. The Hospice operates across Falkirk, Stirling, Clackmannanshire and the Cumbernauld/Kilsyth ‘Northern Corridor’ and was formed 45 years ago when a community of professionals felt that institutional palliative care at that time wasn’t good enough. They came together and created something better.
And that spirit continues to this day; the Hospice’s Mission Statement is “Everything we do in our community, is for our community, and with our community, to enable people to live and die well”.
Hospices are necessarily community-driven. The state pays for only around a third of running costs with the remainder, currently £20,000 a day, generated from community support. At Strathcarron, that includes social enterprises such as our personalised homecare service, Creative Homecare, our charity shops and an emerging network of Papermill cafés. These are all driven and made possible by local people, keeping alive a vital local institution.
Community teams for community services
While the hospice has an in-patient space of 24 beds, the majority of the services delivered are community-facing. Thousands of people are supported by our community teams, which include:
The Community Clinical Nursing Specialist team
The Live Your Life telephone-based support for people with life-limiting conditions
The Hospice at Home service
Services offering lymphoedema support, complementary therapies and more
Strathcarron also works with the families of those supported though welfare rights, counselling and spiritual support. All of this underpinned by the efforts of more than 500 volunteers dedicating time to help others in their own communities.
Our Compassionate Communities team is funded by the Hospice, Falkirk Health and Social Care Partnership, the National Lottery and Falkirk CVS and we have adopted and use an asset-based approach to community development in their work.
Our goal is to work with communities to build their confidence and capacity to host conversations about illness, death, grief and living well, and to enable people to support one another within the community.
This approach is a response to over-medicalisation of palliative care services and a recognition of the role that community plays in sustaining quality of life though the most difficult of circumstances. As demonstrated vividly by the community response to the Covid lockdown, the value and potential in communities is huge.
Community connection at the heart of services
Compassionate Communities delivers a wide range of activities, all of which have community connection at their heart. Here are just a few examples.
Community link workers help people and families to talk about their priorities, identify personal strengths and make connections in their community, supporting over 80 people, and 50 family members or unpaid carers in the process
Volunteers support over 60 befriending matches providing regular visits to others in their community with life limiting conditions at risk of isolation, generating an estimated minimum of 9,000 volunteer hours per year
Bereavement community connectors support people experiencing 'normal grief' in the community, many of whom go on to volunteer in their local community
Additional work with schools, organisations that work with people with learning disabilities, groups representing diverse cultures and others to explore their experiences of grief and help them find ways to support their members
Snowdrop Cafes - run by local communities and supported by Strathcarron in eight locations support 60+ volunteer opportunities and over 8,000 attendances each year… and are growing in number!
The Community Builder project has helped communities across the area support people to unearth their skills and help them create sustainable community change
As well as a whole series of one-of activities and resources
We also offer a range of resources to help open up conversations about end of life planning, reflection on personal loss, and a ‘games convention’ aimed at encouraging younger groups in particular to think about death, grief and end of life planning.
This year is our 45th anniversary and we would invite any community organisation who would like to know more about our work and our approach to compassionate community work to get in touch.
If you’d like to get in touch, you can email David.
Read more about Strathcarron’s work.
Access useful resources on the website’s bereavement hub.