We are button-popping proud!
When Jan Watson, Chair of the Board of Home Hospice North Lanark (HHNL) checked her email on Tuesday, February 13 she noticed there was an email from someone she’s been waiting to hear from. She took a deep breath and clicked on it …
“After your diligent efforts … this report is the culmination of a great deal of hard work by the whole crew at HHNL and I am delighted to congratulate you on a successful three year Accreditation!
“Home Hospice North Lanark has fulfilled the requirements for Hospice Palliative Care Ontario (HPCO) Accreditation of a core In-Home Hospice program that also offers Grief & Bereavement Support services by demonstrating through extensive written and verbal evidence that it follows HPCO Standards.
“Upon review of the evidence, it is our assessment that Home Hospice North Lanark meets the following expectations of an In-Home Hospice program accredited by HPCO…”
Sincerely,
Selina Abetkoff”
• • •
The Board made the decision to apply for HPCO Accreditation in June 2021. The Accreditation Committee of Jan Watson, Jane Henderson (Past HHNL Director and Chair and Coordinator of the HHNL Accreditation Team) and Esther Houle (Chair of the Program Committee and Board Director), worked diligently to meet all of the requirements of HPCO Accreditation. It has been an enormous undertaking, especially for a volunteer-driven organization. It requires many hundreds of hours of effort, determination and dedication. Also working on this were Luci Jacobsen, who was hired for admin support, and Wendy O’Keefe who was able to supply historical documents, and oversee branding in the early days of the process.
There are people who have never taken part in an accreditation process and those who have. It’s a life-defining event. Until you’ve done this, you can’t know what a labour-intensive and arduous, but satisfying experience it is. Over 260 documents were revised, revamped, created and perfected, with discussions happening at all levels of the organization and many communications back and forth with our support team at HPCO. It has been an excellent learning experience that has taught us much about where we started and where we have come to, and shone an affirming light on our future potential.
“As Chair of the Board, I thank the Board of Directors both past and present for their support and patience as we worked through this. To our Committee Chairs and Program Coordinators, thank you for the hours you invested providing information, revising documents and developing forms as needed, and Luci and Wendy for their contributions. To our Visiting Volunteers for your encouragement and interest in the accreditation process which will only make the program that you volunteer for more efficient and effective for those we support.
We also send our thanks to Selina Abetkoff and her team at HPCO for all of their help, advice and guidance.
And last but certainly not least to my fellow Accreditation Committee members, Jane and Esther who were committed to this from the start and saw it through to the end and to our admin support, Luci — you are the best!
A special thanks to Jane for the use of her dining room, for often providing food for us hungry souls to give us the energy to carry on and to Luci for the delicious baked goods that mysteriously appeared at the many meetings that she attended – A HUGE THANK YOU to you!”
— Jan Watson, Chair
We give the last word to Jane Henderson, who some think of as the matriarch of HHNL: “Accreditation status under HPCO was a personal goal throughout my varied involvement from the time we started as Hub Hospice Palliative Care in 2012, continuing as Home Hospice North Lanark, and right up to today, 2024. What a challenging and satisfying experience it has been being part of this ultimate achievement!”