Palliative/ Home Hospice Care Psychologist

Key duties and responsibilities:

1. Psychological support service provision responsibilities:

1. Patient & Family level:
   • Adopt SANAD’s person-centered approach in palliative home hospice care, and any other policies set forth.
   • Implement an in-depth psychological intervention to patients, families, and their children through regular home visits upon need.
   • Implement SANAD’s Bereavement Support Program.
   • Conduct tele-health sessions for patients or families as needed, adopting SANAD’s Tele-health policy and/or Long-Distance Support policy.
2. Interdisciplinary Team level:
   • Care planning and close coordination with the nursing team, and peer-to-peer case discussions with the fellow psychologist within the Mental Health Unit.
   • Endorse, evaluate, and continue developing SANAD’s Referral Criteria of cases from the Nursing Unit to the Mental Health Unit
   • Participate in SANAD’s weekly interdisciplinary team meeting and provide input on cases as needed.
   • Participate in SANAD’s weekly nursing and psychologists team meeting, reporting on cases.
   • Provide psychological support to the hospice care team members as part of staff care, as needed.
3. Training, education and research responsibilities:

• Conduct and continue developing SANAD’s mental health training material to other healthcare members on awareness-raising, generalist, and specialist levels.
• Take part in the evaluation and continuous adaptation of the Bereavement Support Program.
• Implement data entry, literature reviews (i.e. international guidelines and evidence-based practices), and other research activities as needed. This includes being vigilant on updates of best practices in the literature, that are then adapted in SANAD’s materials.
• Contribute to the development of the psychosocial support in palliative care guidelines.
• Develop and implement capacity building workshops/presentations to SANAD’s internal team as needed.
• Participate in training and orientation sessions for newly appointed nurses and volunteers at SANAD.

3. Organizational and Professional tasks/responsibilities:

• Follow SANAD’s executive policies and guidelines in clinical care and take part in developing new policies for uncovered areas as needed.
• Endorse, use, and be familiarized with the Mental Health Unit’s Reference Tools, including the competency framework, the referral criteria, the Opioid Risk Policy, progress note template, the Annual Plan 2023-2024, training material, and the key literature references.
• Ensure proper documentation of a session’s assessment, intervention, planning, and coordination in the patient’s medical file using SANAD’s progress note template.
• Identify the professional training needs of the Mental Health Unit and enroll in any key courses found online as needed, that are identified by the unit as being important and relevant.
• Write donor proposals and progress reports.
• Contribute to the development and structure of the Mental Health Unit through accumulating lessons learned related to psychological support in home hospice care

4. Advocacy and outreach tasks/responsibilities:

• Take part in developing, and overseeing the Internship Program’s implementation, monitoring, and evaluation at SANAD. 

Conduct and participate in community awareness sessions or campaigns on the psychological aspects in end-of-life care, including social media campaigns as needed, and any community resources to be disseminated for lay persons.

Qualifications:

Willing to travel for trainings provided by SANAD.

Flexible, proactive, problem solver, team player, trustworthy, and willing to accommodate for difficult and unexpected situations.

Respects rituals and customs of cultural norms, associated with the transition from life to death, including mourning rituals.

Recognizes and upholds human rights and the four basic moral principles of medical practice (namely autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice).

Communication skills:

Excellent communication skills, empathy, and compassion.

Open minded, non-judgmental, respectful of others and their beliefs.