OpenIDEO
Cancel
OpenIDEO is an open innovation platform. Join our global community to solve big challenges for social good. Sign Up / Login or Learn more
Phase: Ideas Missions: Services & Care

End of life care training seminars for unemployed and uninspired youth [Updated 08/20/16]

Comprehensive palliative and end of life care training to inspire unemployed youth's life views, spiritual lives, life goals, etc.

Photo of Marea Saldarriaga
14 17

Written by

Who is your idea designed for and how does it reimagine the end-of-life experience?

There aren't enough physicians nor nurses in America properly trained in palliative care medicine. My idea is targeted for millennials, those in the 18-25 age group who suffer from unemployment/underemployment who could become house care givers through a full-time intensive seminar on values, symptom & pain management & palliative care. Through a new career training, they get a meaning for living a reason to wake up daily. People experiencing their #EOL will receive better care at their homes.

  • INTRODUCTION

  • CAREGIVERS INFOGRAPHIC

  • Comprehensive palliative and end of life care training

  • KEY PARTNERSHIPS

  • GROWTH TO NEW AUDIENCES

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Introduction

Palliative care is important in general practice because the final year of a patients' life is usually spent in and out of hospitals under the care of a general practitioner (GP) and a primary health care team.

Palliative care is a relatively new and developing medical speciality. By implication, there aren't enough physicians nor nurses in America properly trained in this area. Hence there is a high need for education both for health care professionals and keen learners.

On the other hand, there are millennials, those in the 18-25 age group who suffer from unemployment/underemployment and who could become assistant palliative care nurses.

U.S. census data show that 40 percent of our nation's unemployed are millennials, translating into 4.6 million young people out of work. And the number of employed young people making less than $25,000 a year has spiked significantly to the highest levels in more than a quarter century. 
Image title

COMPREHENSIVE PALLIATIVE AND END OF LIFE CARE TRAINING

One out of five Americans are caregivers -Mental Health America Caregivers infographic

Despite this information displayed at the above infographic, there is no guarantee that these care givers are receiving the proper training for such a monumental role.

Establishing a charity dedicated with the mission of training unemployed millenials on broad topics like Pain Management & Palliative Care could bridge the above gap.

A new career training, could result for the unemployed millenial in meaning for living; a reason to wake up every day.

The end of a patient's life could be spent at home (where they are happiest), painless with regular visits from a vivid human being versus with a team of stressed healthcare workers at a hospital.

Knowledge transfer

Home care nurses have an invaluable knowledge not found on literature that could be transfered to millenials via these seminars. They could participate on the seminars facilitation and share their valuable insights to help millenials build empathy and feel confident to assist those in their end of life.

A testimonial from a caregiver from Tobias house attendant care Inc. in Toronto Canada:

If I was to choose two priority topics that a new care giver should take into account when assisting a person going through their end of life, I would say dignity and confidentiality.

It is interesting that from a wide range of specialty topics required to be a health-caregiver, she chose values which form one's criteria and make a whole difference on the person's experience.

It is an immense challenge and will require the knowledge transfer of experts and users as well as the student's will and right learning attitude. However, a good way to transfer this knowledge would be utilising communication tools as the one (attached below) Comm tool for patients and physicians developed by The Lupus foundation of America I found it extremely useful for people with lupus and their caregivers to speak about ways to get and provide support. There are some interesting insights of the type of help patients get from caregivers as well as the things they value from the service provided e.g 'offer a hug' was one thing which stood out from patient's requests.

Visiting Nurse Associations and Home Health and Hospice agencies have prepared helpful materials and resources to help start the conversation about the end of life with our loved ones to encourage advance care planning. 

Designing these type of tools at the actual seminars could really enrich the seminar attendees learning process. Since the range of end of life situations is infinite, owning different sets of tools adapted to specific causes will be key to the organisation's competitive advantage.

Key PARTNERSHIPs

Joining forces with established institutions both in the USA and abroad will be key to achieve the organisation's mission and optimise resources.

There are some institutions already working in healthcare which could really help materialise this endeavour.

There are organisations already providing services to help people with disabilities live independently which could be interested in taking the millenials who have been trained in palliative care as potential trainees. A potential alliance with an organisation like this is PACE

An alliance with Americorp could be interesting so that trainings could be built into their affiliates service year.

Community Care Access Centres have a wealth of experience providing a difference on people's lives through outstanding caregiving. Having support from their caregivers to teach millenials the key aspects of successful care-giving would be ideal.

The seminars could be held in local places like YMCA and Settlement Houses in order to maximise the organisation's budget.  

Growth to new audiences

It would be key to identify the places where millenials network and find out about career and social development opportunities in order to communicate the existence of the seminars to the people who are already thinking about similar experiences and to inspire them to consider these trainings.

Getting nurses, and care givers to talk about about the fascinating and highly complex world of palliative/end of life care in places where millenials hang-out will give them the opportunity to reflect about the impact and influence working with the dying could have upon their lives.

What early, lightweight experiment might you try out in your own community to find out if the idea will meet your expectations?

Send a structured online questionnaire to all registered GPs, home care nurses, Palliative care experts, in diverse cities of the country to sound the idea with professionals and identify priority topics for proper palliative care training, and to potential seminar attendees, unemployed/underemployed millenials to validate the actual demand of the seminars. After a month, the database would be closed, we would begin data entry, analysis and seminar content ideation.

What skills, input or guidance from the OpenIDEO community would be most helpful in building out or refining your idea?

Collecting information on the doctors and nurses knowledge on symptom and pain management & insights on care givers palliative care knowledge, for the development of relevant questions that will inform the content ideation. Also to identify potential seminar attendees and finally designing questions regarding time-frame, location, and last but not least, networking with potential project sponsors because ideally the seminars would be free/very affordable for the millennials.

Tell us about your work experience:

I have consulted widely with Cultural Institutions and Academic bodies. Designed Business Models and Touch Points to improve the experience a Brand delivers within the Health Sector, Food, Transportation Systems, Technology, Automotive and Real Estate as well as for Education, and Wellness sectors.

This idea emerged from

  • An Individual
View more

Attachments (2)

Caregivers infographic.png

November is Family Caregivers Month. The infographic illustrated key facts about caregivers of individuals with mental illnesses and the issues they face. The most relevant point for this idea is the 5 tips given for becoming an effective caregiver. The first one being-education!

comm tool for patients and physycians.pdf

The Lupus foundation of America created this useful tool for people with lupus and their caregivers to speak about ways to get and provide support. There are some interesting insights of the type of help patients get from caregivers as well as the things they value from the service provided e.g 'offer a hug' Designing these type of tools at the actual seminars could really enrich the seminar attendees learning process. And having different sets of tools adapted to specific illnesses will be key.

Inspired by (1)

I’m a doctor. Preparing you for death is as much a part of my job as saving lives.
I’m a doctor. Preparing you for death is as much a part of my job as saving lives.

14 comments

Join the conversation:

Comment
Photo of D'vorah
Team

Hi Marea!
This is a really interesting proposal and could help address the shortage of lay caregivers comfortable with and trained in assisting those at the end of life.

I wonder if rather than setting up a separate program it might be possible to coordinate this with existing hospices and palliative care programs already in existence in local communities. That would allow these youth to benefit from training that’s already been developed. It could also act as a pipeline into the professional world of palliative and end of life care since most healthcare provider programs (such as nursing, medicine, physical therapy, etc.) require the applicant to have already been volunteering or working in the field of interest. Setting this up as a volunteer or internship program could work very well. Also, hospices are mandated to provide a certain number of volunteer hours/year; bringing in this type of program could help local hospices become more robust and serve more patients and families.

These youth could be trained to provide basic Activities of Daily Living, run errands, provide empathetic visits, etc. Pain and symptom management can be quite complex so I would think the patient would have to still be cared for by hospice, home health or palliative care.

To address the “uninspired” aspect, perhaps there could be weekly or monthly learning and reflection modules. The youth would have the opportunity to continue learning about the fascinating and highly complex world of palliative/end of life care. They could also have opportunities to reflect with their cohort and with professionals (nurses, doctors, chaplains, social workers, etc.) about the impact and influence working with the dying is having upon their own life views, perspectives, spiritual lives, life goals, etc.

The training could also use some of the excellent conversation at end of life tools already developed by groups like  http://www.starttheconversationvt.org/   I could see this becoming an exciting way to cultivate a much broader base of knowledgeable, empowered advocates for good palliative and end of life care.  

link
Photo of Marea Saldarriaga
Team

D'vorah thanks so much for taking the time to reflect upon my contribution. I really appreciate your thoughtful comments they were really interesting and valuable to enrich and reframe my original idea. What is your profession? how did you become interested in Palliative care?, where are you based?
Cheers

link
Photo of D'vorah
Team

Hi Marea! I'm pleased to know the comments were helpful.  My professional background: RN and multifaith chaplain with over 15 years' experience in palliative care/end of life care work in hospitals (academic and community) and community hospice programs.  I'm in the SF Bay Area. 

link
Photo of Marea Saldarriaga
Team

Hi D'vorah It is the first time I hear about spiritual Palliative care. What does RN stand for?
Anyway, your profession is very noble. It would be interesting to consider this type of care in the seminar content.  Do you know the AHPCC Association of Hospice & Palliative Care Chaplains? they might be interested in joining forces...
Did you participate in the #EOL OpenIDEO challenge? or how did you come across my post? Cheers!

link
Photo of Bettina Fliegel
Team

Hi Marea.  
I like your idea!  It links two problems and I like that approach - youth unemployment and the need for a dedicated caregiver workforce for those at end of life.  Have you considered Americorp as a model for the training?  They already are working in the healthcare field.  I wonder if building this idea into their service year might be a way to bridge trainings and work, going from an Americorp year into further work after having received a year of training and experience?   (Might a year of supervised experience allay fears for users, and/or family members of users who are concerned about having people other than family or friends as caregivers?)
Also, local places like YMCA and Settlement Houses might be places where the trainings can occur.  They are often places that have youth programming and elder programming, so maybe they could be a place to train and match services?
(A link to a Settlement House in NYC - http://www.henrystreet.org)

I think working in this area can be very transformative for young people.  Here is an article that I saw linked to a comment on this site that I found so inspiring.  It might inspire your Idea?  http://www.mindful.org/a-matter-of-death-and-life/

link
Photo of Marea Saldarriaga
Team

@BettinaFliegel
Thank you so much for your thoughtful feedback on my idea. Your references are incredible, I have not connected my idea to any of those as I did not grow up in the USA, yet they are so relevant to enrich the concept and join forces with established institutions both in the USA and abroad. The article is wonderful it pictures what I imagined and that kind of validates the need for a service like the one I drafted. I haven't thought of the possibility of creating a charity around it, but this idea opens a whole lot of possibilities. I will now get busy editing the post and will hopefully hear back from you in the near future. All the best, Marea

link
Photo of Bettina Fliegel
Team

Hi Marea.  Great that you found the references helpful.  I was thinking that for a program such as Americorp, that youth might be able to get this training as one part an entire year working in a health care setting placement.  Maybe they work in hospice as one of many sites that they are work in over the course of a year?

How do you envision young people finding out about the training seminars?  I checked and found that New York City offers trainings so that people can enhance their skills to get jobs.   The city has a general website, and there is a section for this.  (Workforce 1 - Linked below.)  I am not sure that this is something that young people know about, or a resource they would go to.   Maybe they do.  How do millenials network and find out about these types of opportunities? How to link young people with this idea?

http://www.nyc.gov/html/sbs/wf1/html/develop/develop.shtml  

link
Photo of Marea Saldarriaga
Team

Hi Bettina
I really like the idea of joining forces with existing organisations, an alliance with Americorp makes a lot of sense, since they already have a captive audience. 
In regards to disseminating the opportunity to the target audience I guess that it would have to be though other alliances such as career development centers like New York City's and schools but also a lot could be done online where the audience leaves, through seeding keywords on blogs and social media.
Cheers!

link
Photo of Bettina Fliegel
Team

I agree partnering with Americorp could be a good way to train people for this work.  Capturing other youth, those that are not actively working in any capacity would also be key to achieve both goals in the long term.  Social media sounds like a good approach!

link
Photo of Network Esquire
Team

Really unbelievable, is not as easy as you can see, the posts difficulty and challenge waiting for you and that's the main difficulties that make us interesting.

http://www.unblocked2games.com/games/racing.html

link
Photo of OpenIDEO
Team

Welcome to the Refinement phase Marea! Here are some key questions and milestones we encourage all idea teams to consider in the Refinement phase:

1. How might this idea address the unique needs of the target audience you're designing for?
2. Clearly summarize the value offering of your idea in 1-2 sentences
3. Communicate your idea in a visual way with user experience maps http://ideo.pn/UX_Map
4. Identify assumptions that need to be answered in order to validate your value offering: http://bit.ly/1Oi8ZHu
5. Collect feedback from potential partners and users to answer the assumptions you’ve identified.

Lastly, here's a useful tip: When you update the content of your post, it'd be helpful to indicate this in your idea title by adding an extension. For example, you can add the extension " - Update: Experience Maps 07/12" to you idea title. This will be a good way to keep people informed about how your idea is progressing!

link
Photo of Melinda Roenisch
Team

Marea, thank you for commenting on my idea about robots and care. I think you have a very good idea here, as well.  Millennials are particularly interested in giving back to the world they live in, and participating in productive ways. Your idea is an excellent match with this desire and gives them a clear avenue by which they could become involved. And, in addition to the practical nature of providing valuable employment opportunities to a motivated, under-utilized group, the idea also provides something very precious for the end-of-life experience - contact with a younger person. It's possible such contact could have many benefits for both the millennial palliative assistant as well as the individual receiving care. There is wisdom to be shared between the two, from both, and that could become a way to have a richer understanding of one's own experience, as well as the other person's.  I'll just say it - youthful energy is wonderful to be around. The millennial palliative assistant brings this with them  as well. As assistants, in addition to learning the very important elements of physical care, one part of the training might be focused on the humanity and emotional factors that are involved. In the bigger picture, such involvement could lead to a greater longterm empathy for others among the assistant trainees in this program, and the world can always use more of that. I appreciate your thinking very much, and hope this idea continues to develop.  Melinda

link
Photo of Marea Saldarriaga
Team

Thank you for your thoughtful response Melinda Roenisch. This idea has moved forward to the refinement stage, I am really enthusiast about its materialisation. I have previous experience organising seminars and would be honoured to lead a project like this. You are totally right, exchanging time and ideas will be fruitful for both parties. A youngster's life path could change from spending time with a savvy elder and spending time with a joyful and youngster could mean the world for an elder.

link
Photo of Marea Saldarriaga
Team

@Venus Chung, I am keen to hear your opinion on my idea.

link