Partners In Care has christened a new death doula program in partnership with The Peaceful Presence Project.

A death doula is a non-medical provider trained to care for a terminally ill person and their family physically, emotionally and spiritually during the process of death. They facilitate conversations regarding the dying process, discuss advance care planning, hospice election and advocate the patient’s wishes around ceremony, memorialization and disposition, among others.

The Partners In Care program will be housed within the organization’s volunteer department.

“This partnership and the doula training allows us to connect more deeply with those volunteers who also want to connect more deeply with their patients and the families. There’s a profound impact, a profound relationship that happens in that time,” Shannon Campbell, director of human resources for Partners In Care, told Hospice News. “It’s something that our volunteers are seeking — to be able to give more.” 

Partners In Care is an central Oregon-based nonprofit hospice, home health and palliative care provider with nearly 200 employees and 200 volunteers. The Peaceful Presence Project, founded in 2019, is a nonprofit organization that trains end-of-life doulas.

Through the program, select volunteers will undergo death doula training that is customized for Partners In Care. Via the partnership, Peaceful Presence developed the training modules, and their team will provide the education for the initial cohorts. In time, Partners In Care staff will take over the training. The first cohort will include eight trainees, according to Campbell.

Most of the expenses associated with launching the program, including development of the training materials, were covered by a philanthropic grant from the Jonas Family Foundation, Campbell said.

The program’s “origin story” involves multiple strands that became woven together. For years prior, Partners In Care and Peaceful Presence connected at multiple touchpoints before entering this formal partnership. 

For instance, Campbell herself underwent death doula training through Peaceful Presence and got to know their leadership team. Concurrently, Peaceful Presence frequently worked with Partners In Care Palliative Care Medical Director Dr. Jennifer Blechman, who would refer some patients to end-of-life doula services. The two organizations also previously collaborated on orientations for Partners In Care volunteers. 

“All these things were happening at once. So we just opened the conversation really, about what it would look like for Partners in Care to have their own in-house doula program,” Erin Collins, program director and co-founder of The Peaceful Presence Project, told Hospice News. “We knew that there continues to be space for both community-based doulas as well as a program that is in-house. We really feel that a lot of people can benefit from the services of an end of life doula. So that’s really how the idea got sparked.”