End-of-Life Care Practitioner Program

COURSE STRUCTURE

The comprehensive one-year course includes several interdependent components. Thematic group sessions (see Syllabus) develop through the year. Individual faculty mentoring complements instruction, as do field visits, independent study, journaling, and supervised fieldwork with the dying in the participant's local community. The group meetings comprise over 250 hours of instruction utilizing several learning modalities (see below). These meetings occur as follows:

• Extended Weekend Sessions: Four residential weekend sessions begin on Thursday afternoon and continue through noon on Sunday. Weekends include in-depth study in a range of topics, including personal death awareness, the nature of suffering, the development of empathic relationships, the transpersonal dimensions of the dying process and more.
• Eight-Day Intensive Session: Begins on Friday afternoon and continues through the following Friday. Intensive session is experiential and process driven, focusing primarily on dialogue, counseling & communications skills.
• Eight-Day Retreat: Begins on Friday afternoon and continues through the following Friday. Retreat is dedicated to mindfulness practice with alternating periods of silent sitting and walking meditation, contemplative inquiry and personal interviews with teachers.

Faculty member Frances Vaughan and program graduate Sandra Lee MSW Kaiser Hospice, Vallejo CA

"The curriculum and teaching styles were radically innovative."
Sandra Lee, MSW Vallejo, CA

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