* Applications are CLOSED*
Deadline: April 30, 2022
The Jean Stone Scholarship is generously supported by the Stone Family. The scholarship is in memory of their beloved wife, mother and grandmother, Jean Stone, who was a nurse, caring for others throughout her career.
Jean greatly appreciated the end-of-life care received while in Dulcina Hospice and wished this memorial fund to promote the well being of others and reward exemplary care.
This scholarship of up to $500 is intended to support volunteers working in palliative care by helping to broaden their knowledge. We will award a minimum of two scholarships each year.
The scholarship must be put towards the cost of a conference or course on palliative care. This could be an upcoming educational opportunity in 2022, or one that took place within the past 6 months (June 1 – December 31, 2021).
There are many different courses and conferences out there. Some eligible ideas include:
- Mary O’Connor Palliative and Hospice Care Conference, May, Calgary
- 30th Annual Provincial Palliative Care Conference, September 15-16, 2022, Winnipeg
- Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Conference, October, Ottawa
- Palliative Education and Research Day, October, Edmonton
- St Elizabeth Online Training Course – Over a series of five modules, this course will provide learners the opportunity to learn about selected principles of palliative and end-of-life care to clients and their families. Using a holistic framework to understand the dying process, learners will explore concepts about life-threatening illness from advance care planning to the last hours of life and through to death, grief and bereavement. Learners will consider how to provide care that is culturally relevant and honors the choices, traditions, and values of the dying person and their family.
Questions? Please email kpuchbauer@ahpca.ca.
PLEASE NOTE
Applications can be submitted online (see form below), OR mailed/emailed. Mailed applications and emails that are dated after the deadline will not be accepted.
Please download and read the ‘Criteria and Directions’ document before completing your application.
Application Criteria and Instructions
Printable Application Form
Once you have completed this form, please print out a copy to send to us. You may also want to print out a copy for your own records, as it is not possible to save the information you enter.
You can either scan the printout and email your electronic copy to kpuchbauer@ahpca.ca, or you can mail a printout directly to AHPCA, #110, 105 12 Ave SE, Calgary AB, T2G 1A1. Please remember to include your letter of support and your evidence of course/conference registration.
OR
Complete the application online below.
2022 Jean Stone Scholars
Congratulations to Michele King and Kristin Slagorsky, AHPCA’s 2022 Jean Stone Scholars!
Michele King, 2022 Jean Stone Scholar
I am a hospice volunteer at the Compassionate Care Hospice Society in Rocky Mountain House. I am also a certified end-of-life doula, and an expressive arts grief support and healing art workshop facilitator. I felt called to hospice in 2016 and took my hospice volunteer training through the Olds & District Hospice Society.
I love the deepness and sacredness of end of life work. I truly believe it is the most precious time in our lives where much healing can happen, and I feel blessed to be able to be witness to it.
I will use the scholarship funds to continue my education by taking the course on Conscious Dying: Preparing for a Peaceful Transition offered by the Sacred Crossings Institute in Los Angeles.
The COVID-19 pandemic spurred me to offer grief support programs via Zoom. There were so many people grieving that needed to be seen and heard. It was also when I decided to further my training and become an end-of-life doula in September 2020.
Michele King can be found on Facebook
Kristin Slagorsky, 2022 Jean Stone Scholar
I am a newer volunteer in the world of hospice and palliative care. I became involved when Bill Harder, the Palliative & Grief Support Navigator with the Palliative Care Society of the Bow Valley (PCSBV), started to develop programming to serve our geographic area. I currently have a student placement with PCSBV as I work towards a Post-Master’s Diploma in Art Therapy through the Vancouver Art Therapy Institute. In collaboration with Bill, we have been offering a monthly HeART Hive to support volunteers with a safe, connective space to debrief their volunteer experiences and explore their creativity as a self-care resource.
I became interested in palliative care when our community began fundraising for a local hospice. As Canmore is a smaller town with an aging population, this is an ongoing gap in the continuum of services available to locals. My interest has grown over time as I come to understand the sacredness of end-of-life care. Art therapy aligns well with hospice and palliative care because it draws us back to our senses, to our inter-connectivity, and to the importance of meaning-making. Art can become a vehicle to communicate the things that transcend language yet speak to our spirits.
One thing I deeply cherish about my volunteer work with the PCSBV is the mentorship I receive from Bill. If you don’t know him, he is a kind-hearted, community-oriented, soul-soothing human. He can hold space for hard questions, deep reflection and strong emotions, often through storytelling, ritual or shared laughter. Our community is lucky to have him leading us through our palliative care society’s growing edges, and I am grateful to be learning from such an incredible mentor.
The Jean Stone Scholarship funds will go towards the costs of a course called “Grief and Loss Through an Art Therapy Lens” that I completed in the spring of 2022. My biggest takeaway from my course was about the many different expressions and forms of grief. Our understandings and orientations towards grief have grown so much in the last few decades and inevitably will continue to grow personally as we each encounter loss and grief throughout our lives. My hope is that we can collectively do a better job of journeying through these liminal spaces together with grace and tenderness for one another’s experiences.
The pandemic has completely shifted the way that I work as a student art therapist. To date, all my placement has occurred virtually, which is not traditionally how art therapy is offered. It’s been interesting to see how relationships can grow despite the technical challenges, and that creativity is not diminished by our space, materials, or personal doubts about our artistic merits. As Elizabeth Gilbert writes,
“…creativity is the hallmark of our species. We have the senses for it; we have the curiosity for it; we have the opposable thumbs for it; we have the rhythm for it; we have the language and the excitement and innate connection to divinity for it. If you’re alive, you’re a creative person. You and I and everyone you know are descended from tens of thousands of years of makers. Decorators, tinkerers, storytellers, dancers, explorers, fiddlers, drummers, builders, growers, problem-solvers and embellishers – these are our common ancestors.” (Book: Big Magic, page 89)
Thank you to Jean Stone’s family for creating the scholarship and to the AHPCA selection committee!