MISSION STATEMENT – Dying At Home was created by Gerard and Helen-Anne Manion to support people caring for those approaching the end of life. Our free, highly recognized training and resource program is available internationally. Use the Dying At Home Program and grow to experience the richness and significance of caring for precious remaining life at home.
Our journey began in 1980. I was a palliative care physician and my husband Gerard was a cancer counsellor. One patient – let’s call him Bill – changed our way of thinking.
Bill’s sharing immediately connected with our deeply held conviction that the care of the dying person must change from an exclusively medical focus, to care in the home by family, friends and neighbours whereby all are enriched at this special time of life. He helped us to understand his desire to die in his own home with his family and friends gathered around him. We were convinced.
From that encounter and the experience of supporting Bill at home in his last days – a tipping point in Gerard’s and my careers – came the Dying At Home Program. Since 1980, Gerard and I have provided the Dying At Home Program to hundreds of people who, approaching the end of life have wished to be at home with family and friends and to have the support necessary to enable this to happen. By using the Dying At Home Program, people grow to experience the richness and significance of precious remaining life and those around them come to learn the love and joy of caring. The dying person, actively involved, is the catalyst for compassion that extends into the community.
We provide Dying At Home training programs internationally. To date our team, Gerard and Helen-Anne, Kathy and Anthony have trained hundreds of people to teach this unique program to family caregivers, in Limpopo District South Africa, Chin State Myanmar, Timor Leste and planned for Gaza Palestine and Greece. Requests are made through www.dyingathome.org.
The Dying At Home Program has been recognised in international circles palliative care circles. In countries where Hospice or Palliative Care community teams already operate, our program works alongside. Our program however works even in settings where palliative care is not widely available.
Many community organisations, individuals, doctors and others are urging us to relearn the lost art of caring for the dying. Dying At Home is our answer to that urging.