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Family Dignity Intervention: Psycho-Socio-Spiritual Care for Terminally-Ill Patients and their Families
Registration open. Please register by 15 Apr 2024
This two-day professional workshop will provide participants with a unique opportunity to learn and experience a novel and clinically robust Family Dignity Intervention (FDI) for cultivating existential wholeness among terminally-ill patients and their families facing the end of life.
FDI is founded upon an empirical foundation on dignified palliative care in Asia and informed by Dignity Therapy; it comprises a highly-focus meaning-oriented interview with individual patient-caregiver dyad that is recorded, transcribed, and edited into a legacy document for sharing with the dyad’s family. A recent Randomized Controlled Trial with 140 participants provided strong evidence of FDI’s efficacy in improving patients’ quality of life, hope, positive life outlook and life meaning, as well as for decreasing caregivers’ stress and depressive symptoms while elevating quality of life and positive life outlook. FDI is an innovative and effective intervention for advancing holistic palliative care in Singapore.
Through mini-lectures, role-plays, hands-on practices, experiential exercises and case sharing, legacy document writing, and large and small group discussions, participants will learn the theoretical foundation, clinical skills and techniques of FDI for facilitating open and compassionate dialogue between patients and their carers that promote appreciation and reconciliation, foster relational bonds, and elicit transgenerational wisdoms to be shared across generations through the creation of a family legacy document. Participants will also learn ways to incorporate FDI into the provision of Advance Care Planning.
Please refer to the brochure here.
By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
- Define the construct of dignity as it relates to palliative and end-of-life populations in the Asian context.
- Describe the association between an undermined sense of dignity and physical and psychological outcomes.
- Outline the theoretical underpinnings of FDI as a psycho-therapeutic intervention.
- Identify the practical counselling skills and etiquette required to conduct FDI.
- Experience taking on the role of FDI therapist, patient and caregiver through role play.
- Summarize the rationale for and steps involved in editing and creating an FDI legacy document.
- Discuss barriers and facilitators to implementing FDI in practice.
- Articulate various approaches for how FDI can be employed alongside Advance Care Planning.
- Reflect upon how FDI could be used in participants’ own clinical environment.
Doctors, Registered Nurses, Advanced Care Practice Nurses, Allied Health Professionals, Psychosocial Staff, Support Care Staff
Associate Professor Andy Hau Yan HO
Dr Ho is Associate Professor of Psychology at the School of Social Sciences, Honorary Joint Associate Professor at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Deputy Director of the Centre for Population Health Sciences at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and Deputy Director (Research) at The Palliative Care Centre for Excellence in Research and Education (PalC).
He is a Fellow in Thanatology, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement (IWGDDB), and the Association of Death Education and Counseling (ADEC).
He specialises in the research and teaching of public health palliative care, life and death education, psychosocial gerontology, holistic therapy and community empowerment. He has produced numerous public health campaigns and short film documentaries, as well as authored over 70 books, chapters, research reports and articles in prominent journals.
He is the first Asian recipient of the esteemed ADEC Academic Educator Award in 2018.
Dr Geraldine TAN-HO
Dr Geraldine Tan-Ho is a Research Fellow and Senior Counsellor at NTU and heads the FDI therapy for terminally ill patients and their families. She is a Certified Thanatologist for her professional and educational achievements in the field of death, dying, and bereavement.
Asst Prof Paul Victor Patinadan
Asst Prof Paul Victor Patinadan is Assistant Professor at the School of Social Sciences, at the NTU. He is also an ADEC certified Thanatologist and plays an active role in the ARCH Lab. He has a special interest in psycho-socio-spiritual interventions and therapies in the area of end-of-life care and grief and bereavement facilitation for families.
Fees before subsidy: SGD 490.50 per person (including 9% GST)
*Prevailing fee subsidy for staff working in eligible Community Care organisations:
90% for Singaporean/PR and 45% for non-Singaporean/PR.
*Organisations will be billed the amount after subsidy.
Date and time: 2 and 3 May 2024, 9.30am – 5.30pm
Venue: Dover Park Hospice, Level 3 Training Room
For staff of Community Care Organizations, please register via AIC CCLMS.
Otherwise, please email to enquiries@palc.org.sg.
