End Stage Life Care MultiCulturally

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End Stage Life Care Multi-Culturally

• Walter L. Schwartz
• Center for Compassionate Care

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Preparing For Death

• Beliefs Racial/Ethnic
• Ceremonies, Rituals, Traditions
• Culture, Religious Practices
• Superstitions, Family Influences

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Overview

• Death the great influencer
• Bereavement tasks of grief
• Mourners reconciliation needs
• Pulling pearls out of the ashes

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Pervasive Themes

• Stories of a Life Time
• Respect of Honored Traditions
• Cultural Lenses

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Vocabulary

• Demonyms - names of nationalities
• Sit Shiva- seven days
• Velório- /novena- nine days
• Wake/home going/viewing
• After-life/reincarnation/final journey

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Grieving and Death

• Variety of ways humans deal with death, both
  religiously and spiritually, as well as socially,
  culturally.
• The ways different religions and cultures view
  death, and how they understand the afterlife and
  caring for the remains of their loved one.
• Examine our attitudes toward death and dying.
• Violent /disenfranchised deaths.

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Helping Bereaved Families Heal

• MYTHS OF GRIEF
• Grief and mourning are the same.
• There are orderly, predictable stages of grief.
• We should avoid the painful parts of grieving.
• We should get over our grief as soon as
  possible.

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The Six Reconciliation Needs of
Mourners1) Acknowledging the Reality of the
Death2) Embracing the Pain of the Loss3)
Remembering the Person Who Died4) Developing a
New Self-identity5) Search for Meaning6)
Receiving Ongoing Support From OthersCompanionin
g the BereavedA Soulful Guide for
Caregivers,By Alan D. Wolfelt
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Our Cultural Understanding of Death

• The different ways humans approach
  death--spiritually, ritually, and behaviorally.
• Your own understanding of how death gives meaning
  to life, and vice versa 
• New lenses

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Get You Out of There

• Client Spiritual Needs
• Client s Cultural Needs
• Remember Cultural Lenses
• Biases/Get You Out Of There

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Wisdom from a Crossing Guard

• Questions