Resilience in Palliative Care: Achievement in adversity

The first book of its kind, Resilience and Palliative Care - Achievement in adversity takes the increasing international literature on resilience and applies it to palliative and end-of-life care. The book offers an overview of all key aspects of palliative care, presented through a resilience perspective. Why do some patients and families break down while others surmounts the challenges facing them? What interventions strengthen individual, family and community coping? This book aims to facilitate change with people facing the crisis of death, dying and bereavement. Much of the existing literature has focused on risk, problems and vulnerability; the emerging concept of resilience focuses on strengths and possibilities. The 'total pain'/'total care' approach pioneered by Dame Cicely Saunders and St Christopher's Hospice now needs reinterpreting in the light of changing contexts and challenges. The realities of demographic change and resource-constrained health and social care environments have generated an increasingly risk focused approach to service delivery. A narrowly medicalised approach has inevitable limitations; professional care alone will be unable to meet need and demand in the face of ageing populations, changing patterns of illness and the need for equity. The resilience approach offers a counterbalance that harnesses the strengths of individuals and the communities in which they live and in which most of their dying will take place. Resilience thinking emphasises the importance of public health and creates a partnership between patients, professionals and community structures, seeking to build community capacity and to deliver a preventive health care that will leave future generations less afraid of the dying and bereavement that will confront all of us. This book offers insights into how, at all levels of planning and delivering palliative care, there is the opportunity to maximise coping, build an infrastructure for self-help, and increase the capacity of strengthened teams and organisations.

Table of Contents:
1: Kerry Bluglass: Resilience and its narrative 2: Max Watson: Resilience and the psychobiological base 3: Julie Stokes: Resilience and bereaved children 4: Talia Zaider and David Kissane: Resilient families 5: Sheila Payne: Resilient carers and caregivers 6: Joan Marston: Resilience and paediatric palliative care 7: Stefan Vanistendael: Resilience and spirituality 8: Adrian Tookman: Resilience and rehabilitation 9a: Linda Machin: Resilience and bereavement - part 1 9b: Phyllis Silverman: Resilience and bereavement - part 2 10: Malcolm Payne: Resilient multiprofessional teams 11a: Peter Speck: Resilient organisations - part 1 11b: Tim Jackson: Resilient organisations - part 2 12: Allan Kellehear and Barbara Young: Resilient communities 13: Stephen Regel: Resilience in trauma and disaster 14: Amanda Bingley and Liz McDermott: Resilience in resource-poor settings 15: Nigel Hartley: Resilience and creativity

About the Author :
Barbara Monroe has been a social worker for over 30 years. She joined St Christopher's Hospice in London in 1987 and became Chief Executive in 2000. She is also Director of the Candle children's bereavement project and Chair of the National Childhood Bereavement Network. She is a member of the Commission on the Future of Volunteering and sits on the advisory group for the palliative care initiative of the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Fund. She has an honorary senior lectureship at the University of Auckland. She is a well known lecturer and trainer and has written extensively about the psychosocial aspects of palliative care. David Oliviere trained at Nottingham University in social administration and social work. With a background in psychiatric social work and management in the personal social services, David was involved with Pilgrim's Hospice, Canterbury, before joining the North London Hospice as Director of Social Work. Subsequently David worked as Community Care Advisor for Ethnic Minorities and Refugees, London Borough of Enfield, and more recently as Macmillan Principal Lecturer in Palliative Care at Middlesex University, whilst practising at the Macmillan Support Team at Barnet Hospital. David also works as a couple counsellor outside of St Christopher's Hospice. He has lectured internationally.

Review :
...a useful addition to the library shelves of anyone working in palliative care and could be used as a reference as well as to promote discussion among team members. Speech and Language Therapy in Practice ...well-written and easy to read and understand...I recommend this book as a must for all professionals engaged in palliative care, clinically and/or in teaching the subject. I do not know of any other book which deals exclusively and openly with resilience in palliative care... this book should have a place in every health and social care library. Christiane Banton, Sr Lecturer Palliative Care, University of Wolverhampton