Field Placement: Huntington Memorial Hospital -- Hospice of Pasadena
Location: Pasadena, CA
Preceptor: Dr. Jennifer Levin, Executive Director
Student Name: Sara Haynes
Year: 2002

For my field studies experience I chose to work with Hospice of Pasadena located within Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena. My professional and academic interests include end-of-life and palliative care issues, as well as issues related to aging and long term care. I chose Hospice of Pasadena as it is a non-profit, end-of-life resource center serving primarily the San Gabriel Valley and parts of Los Angeles County.

Established as a volunteer hospice in 1978, Hospice of Pasadena provides counseling, education and volunteer services to comfort and support individuals, families, professionals and community groups confronted with serious illness, sudden or expected death and bereavement. The goal of Hospice of Pasadena is to alleviate or ease suffering and to promote healing for those facing the loss of a loved one, or facing their own death.

Hospice of Pasadena does not provide medical services, but instead acts in partnership with the medical community while keeping its' focus on guidance and the best means of providing comfort and support. Hospice of Pasadena provides individual, family and group bereavement counseling, Connections, a volunteer respite program; I Count Too, therapeutic support groups for children and adolescents; and community education to meet the needs of seriously and terminally ill patients, their families and health professionals.

The executive director of the agency, Dr. Jennifer Levin served as my preceptor and holds a Masters in Public Health and Ph.D. from the Community Health Sciences Department at the UCLA School of Public Health. As part of my placement with Hospice of Pasadena, I mainly provided research assistance to Dr. Levin, grantwriting and evaluation skills to the agency.

My primary objectives for placement with Hospice of Pasadena were to develop grantwriting skills and to gain practical experience in evaluation design and implementation. As such, my main responsibilities were to 1) manage all aspects of the grantwriting program and 2) perform a formal evaluation and needs assessment of the agency. My secondary responsibilities (objectives) included gaining a better understanding of executive-level non-profit management and administrative skills.

For my grantwriting responsibilities, I researched potential funding opportunities, developed and implemented a grantwriting schedule, wrote and refined grant templates to be used for applications (with the guidance of Dr. Levin) and submitted grants according to their respective deadlines.

The evaluation project, which began as an evaluation of the agency, soon expanded to an evaluation of the Southern California Volunteer Hospice Network, a network of volunteer hospice agencies in Southern California that Hospice of Pasadena belongs. This project included the development and implementation of a self-administered questionnaire, in-depth site visit interviews with four volunteer hospice executive directors and analysis of data collected. The results of the evaluation will be used internally at Hospice of Pasadena and shared with other volunteer hospice agencies nationally in an effort to preserve and promote the concept of volunteer hospices.

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