There is still plenty of time to register for Skiff Hospice’s annual spring conference. Registrations will be accepted through Friday, April 5, for the event, titled “How Do You Do What You Do?”
The conference, which will be from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Friday, April 12, is intended for nurses, social workers, mental health counselors, chaplains, funeral directors, hospice staff and volunteers and community members. A fee of $50 includes lunch, snacks and handouts. The event will be at the DMACC Conference Center, 600 N. Second Ave. W. in Newton.
The event’s organizers are pleased to welcome featured speaker Harold Ivan Smith, D. Min., FT.
Smith is a grief specialist who speaks annually to thousands of grievers, grief counselors and grief facilitators all around the world.
Smith is part of the teaching faculties of Saint Luke’s Hospital, Kansas City, Mo., and the Carondolet Medical Institute in Eau Claire, Wis. Smith created and facilitates Grief Gatherings, an innovative storytelling group for grievers at Saint Luke’s Hospital. He comes from a long tradition of storytellers and weaves stories into his presentation content. Smith’s most recent book is “Borrowed Narratives: Using Historical and Biographical Narratives with the Bereaving.”
At the conclusion of the conference, participants will be able to recognize the threat of anger to the griever and to the caregiver, identify the anger-drivers that create the grief environment, develop strategies to defuse the anger, distinguish between functional, dysfunctional and dysfunctioning families, examine ways “Jerry Springer” families experience the death of someone who was the “glue” holding the fragile family together and identify the “Tension Elevators” in dysfunctioning families that complicate grief.
For more information on the conference or to register, call Skiff Hospice at (641) 787-3074.