Compassionate Ottawa - programs and resources

Compassionate Ottawa is a community movement that works to change the way we think about living well, dying, death and grief and to strengthen the capacity of people to care for each other in times of serious illness and loss. We passionately believe that everyone should have the opportunity to enjoy wellness and self-respect until the end of life. Located in Ottawa, Canada, more information on programs and resources can be accessed HERE

Compassion Ottawa est un mouvement communautaire qui s’efforce de changer la façon dont les gens pensent au bien-être, au mourir, à la mort et au deuil, et à renforcer la capacité des gens à prendre soin les uns des autres en période de maladie grave et de perte. Nous croyons passionnément que chaque personne devrait avoir la possibilité de vivre dans la dignité et le bien-être jusqu’à la fin de sa vie. https://compassionateottawa.ca/fr/

 

Three Compassionate Ottawa community engagement resources were presented at the international conference held in Bruges, Belgium, September 2022. Please check them out and feel free to use them in your work, or as inspiration for your own resources. Resources come with facilitator guides and participant handouts. They are available in both English and French.

Faces of Help Digital Stories

A collection of short, personal, impactful stories that tell the experiences of 7 storytellers reflecting on giving and receiving help when dealing with aging, caregiving, dying, and grieving. We invite you to view the stories; discuss them with family, friends and neighbours; and share them wherever you work, volunteer, learn, pray, or play.

Les visages de l’aide

Un ensemble d’histoires courtes, personnelles et percutantes qui racontent les expériences vécues par sept conteurs qui mettent en lumière la façon de donner et de recevoir de l’aide lorsqu’ils sont confrontés au vieillissement, à la prestation de soins, à la mort et au deuil. Nous vous invitons à visionner ces histoires, à en discuter avec votre famille, vos amis et vos voisins, et à les partager partout où vous travaillez, faites du bénévolat, apprenez, priez ou jouez.

https://compassionateottawa.ca/fr/ressources/#histoires

 

 

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Book Chats: “Talking About Death Won’t Kill You” by Dr. Kathy Kortes Miller

Book chats help us think about and talk about our values and wishes for end-of-life. Download our resources and organize one now!

https://compassionateottawa.ca/resources/#book_chats

Causeries littéraires

Les discussions au sujet d’un livre nous aident à réfléchir et à parler de nos valeurs et de nos souhaits en matière de fin de vie. Téléchargez nos ressources et organisez-une causerie dès maintenant !

https://compassionateottawa.ca/fr/ressources/#causeries

 

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Video: The Compassionate Ottawa Story

Our story uses a short video and an accompanying handbook to describe our journey, including lessons we learned along the way.  The discussion guide offers suggestions on how to use our material to initiate a discussion on becoming a compassionate community.

https://compassionateottawa.ca/resources/#story_video

 

L’histoire de Compassion Ottawa

Notre histoire utilise une courte vidéo et un manuel d’accompagnement pour décrire notre parcours, y compris les leçons que nous avons apprises en cours de route. Le guide de discussion offre des suggestions sur la façon d’utiliser notre matériel pour amorcer une discussion sur la façon de devenir une communauté compatissante.

https://compassionateottawa.ca/fr/ressources/#video-FR

Compassionate Cities Charter 2021 update

PHPCI is pleased to provide an updated version of the Compassionate Communities Charter.

The Charter is a 13 point action list that encompasses the major areas that can create a society in which death, dying, loss and caregiving is everyone’s civic responsibility. It includes our workplaces, educational institutions, churches and temples, unions, health and social care institutions, and public-facing organisations such as museums and media.

The central key is that we all experience crisis, caring, grief, and loss and how we support each other makes an enormous difference, both to the person receiving the support and those giving it. The charter has focussed on institutions and public bodies. In the context of civic action, streets and neighbourhoods are an integral part of our lives. How we help care for the dying or the bereaved is a social experience. What happens in our homes and local streets is as equally important as the support experienced while in schools and workplaces. This is now reflected by adding in compassionate communities at a neighbourhood level to the Charter. 

You can download the 2021 update HERE and an explainer for the new edition by Allan Kellehear and Julian Abel HERE.

REVISED AND APPROVED JANUARY 2021 

JULIAN ABEL & ALLAN KELLEHEAR 

© COMPASSIONATE COMMUNITIES UK 

Compassionate Albany (WA, Australia) Charter Launch

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WAPHA Great Southern in partnership with the City of Albany recently launched the Compassionate Albany Charter. It was launched at the Albany Entertainment Centre on the 22 October with 75 guests. The Charter was launched by the Mayor of the City of Albany, Dennis Wellington with guest Speaker Dr John Rosenberg, President of Public Health Palliative Care International. Read more HERE.

You can read the Charter HERE and HERE.

The Charter was developed by the City of Albany and WA Primary Health Alliance with the Albany community. The community participated in a series of workshops. We have made a short film of what the participants said at the workshops.

The purpose of the Charter is to guide and encourage our community, service providers, businesses, organisations, groups and clubs to work together to create a more compassionate Albany; an Albany that is resilient, responsive and understands we can’t get through difficult times on our own. Compassionate Communities is a global movement that ‘traditionally’ encourages communities and neighbourhood networks to play a much stronger role in supporting people, their families and carers at the end of life. It comes from a public health approach that encourages people to adopt an understanding that health is everyone’s responsibility, not just doctors or health services.

When listening to the local Albany community, compassion was about much more than end of life. The Albany community believe compassion should be embedded in all aspects of everyday life and that everyone has a responsibility to support each other through hardship. Whether this be supporting someone facing the end of life or any of the other challenges life often throws at us.

The Charter has 6 key aspirations: 

  • Shared Humanity – Compassion comes from the heart and starts with me

  • Community Mindedness – Let’s ask what can I do for my community

  • Compassionate Organisations – Let’s grow recognise and reward

  • Compassionate - Places and Spaces

  • Leadership and Advocacy – Let’s lead by sharing what we’ve learnt and listening with our hearts

  • Communication and Information Sharing - Let’s listen, Let’s ask, Let’s talk, Let’s share

We have developed postcards (see example below) for promoting the aspirations and inspiring people to be ’more compassionate’.

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Heather and Tony’s Story - End of Life at Home

Heather and Tony’s Story is a 12-minute film that tells the story of a couple, Tony Speechley and his wife Heather Sanderson and the people who came together to support them through the final months of Tony’s terminal illness. Heather and Tony’s Story Community Support for End of Life at home 

Taipei International Compassion Community Day.

April 6th is the annual Taipei International Compassion Community Day. This year, because of COVID-19 pandemic, the event was postponed to October 17th. Taipei City Mayor Dr. Wen-Je Ko attended Taipei International Compassion Community Day and Community Champion Meeting as well as the Book Launch Event of “Meeting Compassion-Benevolent Mazu and Compassionate Community” which was held in Taipei Tianhou Temple.

Dr. Shier-Chieg Huang, Commissioner of Taipei City Government Department of Health, Mr. Shih-Tsung Lan, Commissioner of Taipei City Government Department of Civil Affairs, Mr. Xiu-Fu Huang, Chairman of Taipei Tianhou Temple, Mr. Yi-Sung Ho, Chairman of Taiwan International Compassionate Community Development Association as well as Shilin Shennong Temple, Champions of Compassionate Communities in Taipei and Dr. Sheng-Jean Huang, Superintendent of Taipei City Hospital attended the event to show their support.

Also, we were honoured to have Prof. Allan Kellehear, Dr. Julian Abel, Ms Bonnie Tompkins and Dr. Shiroma Hiroshi, Chairman of Okinawa Global Healthcare Association congratulated us with short videos and shared their recent progress.

In the Community Champion Meeting, 2021 Taipei City Compassionate Community Action Agenda listed as below:

  • Improve life literacy, construct community values

  • Respect the will of Good Death, promote self-decision making

  •  Integrate with local culture, develop community features

  • Enhance practical training, cultivate future champions

  • Share achievement and experience, link up and communicate with the world

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, some events or assemblies are restricted. However, our communities continue to take care of the elderly, underprivileged and outcasts. We also tried to introduce the concept of disease prevention into daily life to ensure everyone’s health and happiness.


Chia-Jen Liu,
Special Assistant, Taipei City Hospital

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Mapping the progress and impacts of public health approaches to palliative care: a scoping review

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News via The Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care:

A group from the University of Edinburgh, Strathclyde University, La Trobe University, Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care and St Columba’s Hospice Edinburgh, are undertaking a scoping review relating to public health palliative care.

The scoping review aims to:

  • Map the wide variety of activities and programmes that could be classified as ‘public health palliative care’
  • Explore the impact of these activities where impact has been measure

More information about the review is available here:

Having undertaken a search of formally published literature, a grey literature search is now underway.

This will include write-ups/reports/evaluations of work that could be considered public health or health promoting palliative care - ie work aiming to prevent social difficulties around death, dying and bereavement, that involve working with communities or wider society. (Check out the inclusion criteria here.)

If you've been involved in writing up relevant work, even if it has not been formally published, we'd be interested to see it for potential inclusion in the review. Please email Rebecca by 9 February 2018.

The 2017 Taipei Declaration for Health-Promoting Palliative Care

The main public hospitals in Taiwan's capital (Taipei), in collaboration with the Taiwanese Ministry of Health & Welfare, have recently launched a national declaration which commits them both to the principles of Health-Promoting Palliative Care. Palliative care services across Taiwan wish to commit to greater partnerships with community around matters of social support, public education about death & dying (death literacy), and health promotion for end of life care. 

The declaration is called The 2017 Taipei  Declaration for Health Promoting Palliative Care and was launched at their International Symposium on Palliative Care. A month earlier Allan Kellehear was an invited guest at a week long series of meetings with government ministers, members of the Ministry of Health & Welfare, and superintendents of the public hospital system in Taipei. The centre piece for that week-long event was a day-long seminar and workshop on Compassionate Communities/Cities.

Below is a copy of the 2017 Taipei Declaration and a photograph of some of the key dignitaries attending the Launch.

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2017 Taipei International Symposium on Palliative Care

Health-Promoting Palliative Care: Developing Death Literacy for High-Value Care

The 2017 Taipei Declaration for Health-Promoting Palliative Care

Palliative care as a form of health promotion in community

Most elderly people and individuals with life-limiting illness in Taiwan, and most other countries in the world, express a preference to age in place and to die at home. (1) “Dying at home” is an important component of a good death but is difficult to accomplish in Taiwan. Due to easy accessibility to the health care system in Taiwan, many dying individuals, especially non-cancer patients, die in hospitals with few of them receiving palliative care. Since a public health approach to palliative care has been advocated by the World Health Organization since the 1990s, the emphasis on developing death literacy among health care providers, patients, families and the community has become a growing field of practice and scholarship in recent years (2-4). A model of health promoting palliative care, first outlined by Kellehear, calls for community engagement by palliative care and a more open social attitude in facing and discussing dying, death and grief.(5, 6) In order to build a compassionate city, a city committed to alleviating suffering and promoting health and wellbeing, Taipei City Hospital has committed itself to promoting a community/home-based palliative care model in our metropolitan community since 2015 (7). An interdisciplinary health care team not only provides palliative care at home but also encourages and supports community participation in end-of-life care. Building upon The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion (8), the 2017 Taipei International Symposium calls for a Health-Promoting & Life Literacy-Enhancing Palliative Care, an approach to palliative care which aims to improve wellbeing and life literacy – a combination of health and death literacy - in the context of caring for a life-limiting illness in the community. This declaration is built upon five basic principles listed below:

1.     Integrate Palliative Care into Public Health Policy and Practice: Establish a healthcare system integrating health promoting palliative care into primary care and develop an education program to advocate concepts of advance care planning, health and death literacy, and community participation in palliative care across the general population.

2.     Create Supportive Environments: Engage formal and non-formal health service providers, as well as the general community, by acknowledging and valuing their practice wisdom, experience, and collaboration in preventing and addressing suffering.

3.     Strengthen Community Actions: Create a compassionate community with high levels of empathy, by involving families, neighbors, and key community leaders in the community to build mutually supportive relationships, exchange practice experience, share responsibilities, and participate actively in caring networks at the end of life. 

4.     Develop personal skill: Empower all people (including our own health professionals and patients) to make individualized advance care plans and empower the family to develop the knowledge and skills related to death literacy after a systematic learning and strategic shared decision making process.

5.     Reorient Health Services: Empower health care providers by enhancing death literacy training and education and accumulating practice wisdom and experience of person-centered and home-and-community-based care and to accompany the patient and the family along the life course. 

We further declare that health care providers, who deliver primary palliative and hospice care to the elderly and individuals with life-limiting illness in the community, should adhere to the five essential attributes postulated previously (9).

Accessibility: Patients at the end-of-life and their family should be able to access and use the health services at all times and we will assist them to overcome temporal, spatial, economic, and psychological barriers to health care.

Comprehensiveness: Address the great majority of end-of-life issues that encompass the physical, emotional, social and spiritual dimensions of health and anticipate key problems.

Coordination: Coordinate home care services with the patients’ families, the non-formal health service providers, neighbors, and the community, and to coordinate the patients’ plan of care in accordance with his or her personal desire. 

Continuity: Provide health care services to the suffering continuously without losing interest or enthusiasm, make hospice and palliative services a regular and reliable source of care in the community, and make the commitment of being with the patients and the community for the rest of life.

Accountability: Have an obligation to promote health and wellbeing and prevent  suffering for the caregiver community (and among our own professional staff) and have an obligation to address deficiencies while our expanding skills and services.

It is our hope, that with the implementation of the principles in this declaration, we will implement health promotion in end-of-life care fully into our community practice. As death literacy within both the health service providers and the community develop with our growing death education activities and learning experiences in the community, our current aspirations for ageing in place, and a good death at home, will soon become a reality.

1.         Shih C-Y, Hu W-Y, Cheng S-Y, Yao C-A, Chen C-Y, Lin Y-C, et al. Patient preferences versus family physicians' perceptions regarding the place of end-of-life care and death: a nationwide study in Taiwan. Journal of palliative medicine. 2015;18(7):625-30.

2.         Gómez-Batiste X, Caja C, Espinosa J, Bullich I, Martínez-Muñoz M, Porta-Sales J, et al. The Catalonia World Health Organization demonstration project for palliative care implementation: quantitative and qualitative results at 20 years. Journal of pain and symptom management. 2012;43(4):783-94.

3.         Sallnow L, Richardson H, Murray SA, Kellehear A. The impact of a new public health approach to end-of-life care: a systematic review. Palliative medicine. 2016;30(3):200-11.

4.         Noonan K, Horsfall D, Leonard R, Rosenberg J. Developing death literacy. Progress in Palliative Care. 2016;24(1):31-5.

5.         Kellehear A. Health Promoting Palliative Care. Melbourne: Oxford University Pres; 1999.

6.         Kellehear A. Compassionate Cities: Public Health and End of Life Care. . London: Routledge; 2005.

7.         Huang S-J, Wang SS-C, Lee OK-S, Woung L-C, Chu D-C, Huang T-C, et al. 2016 Taipei Declaration for Prevention of Suffering. Journal of palliative medicine. 2016;19(12):1243-4.

8.         Organization WH, editor Ottawa charter for health promotion. First International Health Promotion Conference, Ottawa, Canada, 1986; 1986.

9.         Manpower IoMDoH, Development R. A manpower policy for primary health care: report of a study: National Academy of Sciences; 1978.

 

 

REMINDER: IAHPC scholarships for #PHPC17 are OPEN (due May 15)

The International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care (IAHPC) is pleased to announce it will provide ten (10) scholarships to support the travel of palliative care workers to attend the 5th International Public Health and Palliative Care conference. The conference will take place in Ottawa Canada on September 17-20, 2017.

Applicants from all disciplines are welcome. In order to apply for a traveling scholarship, applicants must meet the following criteria:

  • Have not received grants from IAHPC in the past 3 years
  • Be current IAHPC members. If you wish to apply and are not an IAHPC member, you may join by clicking here.

Preference will be given to applicants:

  • Who have been IAHPC active members for two or more consecutive years.
  • Whose institution is an IAHPC active member. See institutional members here.
  • Living in Lower, Lower-Middle and Upper-Middle income categories as per the World Bank income classification data. See here.
  • Actively working in palliative care.
  • Who are dedicated full-time to palliative care in their current work.
  • Graduated less than 10 years ago from university.
  • Have an accepted abstract for poster / oral presentation. Proof of acceptance of the poster will be required.

This program offers funding for travel and registration only, applicants will need to secure funding from other sources to cover additional expenses.

More detailed information about the application process and the online form are available at the IAHPC website here.

Deadline to apply is May 15, 2017. Results will be announced by early July.

If you need information on how to apply please contact Genevieve Napier, IAHPC Manager of Programs and Projects at gnapier@iahpc.com.

Canada here we come... 'Palliative care IS public health' #PHPC17

The 5th International Public health and Palliative Care conference ( #PHCP17) is shaping up to be a diverse and dynamic meeting!

To be held in Ottawa Ontario, Canada in Sept of 2017, the conference will build on the momentum of the last 4 conferences and aims to take delegates to their next level of expertise around palliative care as public health. The 5 main themes of the conference directly draw from the main tenets of a public health approach, and each of our renown international keynote speakers will address one of these themes.

We hope for lots of abstracts for workshops, papers and posters too! 

Abstracts close January 9th 2017 -  so make haste!

What is new to this conference? There is so much….

  • facilitated poster viewing,
  • at least 10 international scholarships available for delegates via an application process,
  • a true partnership with Canadian citizens,
  • PHPC from a Canadian First Nations perspective,

...to name but a few.  

Also new at this conference is a  “meet the expert” component,  which we call Fireside Chats. Each chat will allow you to get up close and personal with an international expert,  really delve into their ideas, in a casual seating area, replete with some iconic Canadian food pairings.

And finally, new to this 5th conference…lots of Canadian delegates- from Palliative Care, Public Health, Health system leadership and others.

We are also ensuring that we provide access to delegates and speakers from LMIC in new and innovative ways. We hope to offer two community site visits in the local Ottawa area for interested delegates and our conference organizers are offering to help arrange other site visits in other parts of Canada at the request of individual delegates.

All, in all, it should be a great few days. Right after #PHPC17 is the annual Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Conference so delegates can get a discount on attending both conferences which will be held at the same venue. Stay tuned for more updates as conference details emerge.

And finally....

Would you like to become a #PHPC17 Conference Ambassador?

Can you help with marketing of the conference in your own town, group or country?

Just send me an email and we'll add your name to our distribution list. 

marshald@mcmaster.ca

Regards

Denise Marshall  BSc., MD, CCFP(PC), FCFP