New Series On Caregiving
Coming To PBS In The Fall Of
2002
Promote End-of-Life
Issues By Pointing To The
Finding Our Way Website
Coalition Spotlight
Remember to Update Us On
Your Progress!
New Series On Caregiving
Coming To PBS In The Fall Of
2002
Are you or have you been the
family caregiver for a
seriously ill, disabled or
debilitated friend, spouse,
child or parent? If not, the
odds are that you will
become one. Award-winning
producers Harry Wiland and
Dale Bell have each been
caregivers for their
parents. As with any
significant geological
event, they learned that the
landscape of their lives was
permanently changed by the
experience. It created in
them a passionate desire to
highlight the needs of
caregivers and care
recipients and to look for
and share solutions that
will address their needs.
The result is “And Thou
Shalt Honor…”, a two-part
series tentatively scheduled
for broadcast on PBS, Fall
2002. If you think that your
community coalition would
like to incorporate
caregiving issues into your
activities, please email us
at
PBSCaregivers@bballard.com.
Promote End-of-Life
Issues By Directing People
To The Finding Our Way
Website One of the ways
Finding Our Way can help
our nation live through
dying is through its
website. Our figures show
that the website has
received more than 250,000
hits since its launch. We
need your help in broadening
the impact of the Finding
Our Way website to
enable many more people to
read this helpful and
informative series and
discuss how the process of
dying affects them, their
families, and their
communities.
You can help us in a number
of ways. First, if your
organization or coalition
has a website, place a link
to the Finding Our Way
website on your website.
Contact Sherrie Roff at
roffsl@aol.com. She can
send you a Finding Our Way
icon for your website!
You can also lead people to
the Finding Our Way
website by including this
signature at the bottom of
your emails:
Learn more about living
with the end-of-life and how
it affects you and your
community. Go to
www.findingourway.net to
read and discuss the
fifteen-part Finding Our Way
newspaper series
Coalition
Spotlight Kokua Mau: A Statewide
Coalition to Improve
End-of-Life Care in Hawaii
The Hawaii coalition has
been working closely with
The Honolulu Advertiser to
run the series along with
local stories complementing
the FOW article. They ran
the first article on
September 9th along with the
local article. The
Advertiser did a front-page
teaser and a long sidebar
about the 15-part series.
Due to the events in New
York and Washington on
September 11th, the
Advertiser temporarily
halted its publication of
the series. However they
picked up the series again
on September 23rd with a
sudden loss theme, and
accompanied the FOW article
with local articles and
information. The pieces
appeared on the front page
of the “Island Life”
section. The coalition is
working with the paper to
coordinate activities around
the theme of the week.
Additionally, Hawaii's
Executive Office on Aging
made a presentation on the
Kokua Mau project to
Harvard's Innovations in
American Government Program.
The Program strives to
identify and celebrate
outstanding examples of
creative problem solving in
the public sector. This was
the final round of
competition for the
prestigious $100,000 award.
The national competition was
held via live interactive
teleconference on Wednesday,
October 17th, and
announcement of winners will
be made on December 13th.
For more information about
the Innovations in American
Government program go to:
www.innovations.harvard.edu.
For more information about
the Executive Office on
Aging and its partners in
the Kokua Mau Coalition, go
to
www.kokua-mau.org. Great
job Kokua Mau!
Oklahoma Alliance for
Better Care of the Dying
The Oklahoma Alliance for
Better Care of the Dying has
promoted the Finding Our
Way series to its
community partners across
the state. The Alliance
worked to monitor the
activities in the state by
sending tracking forms to
each of their community
contacts. Through efforts
such as this, the Alliance
has learned that at least 9
newspapers in the state are
carrying all or part of the
series, some with local
stories. Oklahoma’s largest
paper, The Daily Oklahoman,
is running the entire series
on their website,
www.newsok.com. This
site is also the website for
the local CBS station,
therefore the series is
reaching a television
audience as well! The Daily
Oklahoman has printed two
local stories in connection
to the series and the
Alliance has sent links to
the series to statewide
partners who subscribe to
their e-newsletter. Thanks
to Patrice Brown and Linda
Edmondson for the update and
congratulations on your
wonderful work in Oklahoma!
Remember To Update Us On
Your Progress! In order to best
understand the impact that
the Finding Our Way series
is having on the nation, we
need to know what you are
doing around the series.
Please help us “show off”
your great work to our
funders by completing a few
monthly evaluation forms
found on our website. You
can do this by visiting
www.findingourway.net/downloads.htm
and look under
Tracking/Evaluation
Materials. Send all
completed forms to Sherri
Roff via e-mail at
roffsl@aol.com
or FAX it to her at
518-626-6094. And thank you
so much for your help!
