LINKS TO RELATED SITES

Growth House
Hospice Resources
Buddhist Practice
Loss & Grief
Caregiving
Media
End-of-Life Education & Policy

Growth House

The Growth House, Inc., search engine is the Internet's most comprehensive collection of reviewed resources for end-of-life care. You can access it directly through Metta Institute.

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Hospice Resources

Here you can search to locate a hospice in your area; learn more about general hospice resources for patients, their families, or professionals; and discover excellent resources on the connection between Buddhism and end-of-life care.

• National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization
  The NHPCO is the largest nonprofit membership organization representing hospice and palliative care programs and professionals in the United States. The site has a searchable engine for hospices around the country by state and county, as well as facts and figures about US palliative care, job openings, and educational opportunities for professionals.
  
• About.com's Death and Dying site
  This site provides discussion forums, current articles for the general public, and collects resources on a variety of related topics, from spirituality to euthanasia to teen grief to signs of dying and more. Oriented to the general public.
  
• End of Life Wisdom
  End of Life Wisdom delivers compassionate professional advice to the living about dying. Gentle and thoughtful life affirming answers to one's individual questions are provided to help one navigate through the challenges of end of life. This site provides a place to submit questions and receive supportive advice from professionals.
• Hospice Net
  Hospice Net provides information and support to patients and families facing life-threatening illnesses. Hospice Net is an independent, nonprofit 501(c)3 organization working exclusively through the Internet. Hospice Net does not accept advertising and is funded entirely by unsolicited, private donations.
  
• Hospice Foundation of America
  HFA is a nonprofit organization that promotes hospice care and works to educate professionals and the families they serve in issues relating to caregiving, terminal illness, loss, and bereavement.
• HEAL Project 
  The Hospice Educators Affirming Life (HEAL) Project is an organization primarily focused on advancing volunteerism in hospice. It offers a number of valuable resources including a helpful e-magazine, Hospice Volunteer News, that is aimed at volunteers and volunteer coordinators. It is also encouraging the development of a Hospice Volunteer Association (HVA) and a national Hospice Volunteer Training Institute (HVTI).
• Zen Hospice Project
  Inspired by a 2,500 year-old tradition, Zen Hospice Project was the first Buddhist hospice in America. Guided for 17 years by Frank Ostaseski, the program continues under new leadership and aims at cultivating wisdom and compassion through service. ZHP provides a spectrum of collaborative services in end-of-life care, including residential hospice care, volunteer programs, and public education events, which support mutually beneficial relationships among caregivers and individuals facing death.

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Buddhist Practice

If you want to locate a sangha near you or learn more about mindfulness practice, start here. Full texts, online meditations, and lists of contacts on the net are accessible.

• Access to Insight
  "Readings in Theravada Buddhism." A lovely site which provides basic understanding of the Buddha's teachings. Also contains numerous pieces of the Pali Canon and the Theravada Text Archives. The latter are a library of some 200 books, essays, and transcribed Dhamma talks by masters from the Thai forest traditions, various authors from the Buddhist Publication Society, and other contemporary writers.
• BuddhaNet: Buddhist Information Network
  BuddhaNet is a non-sectarian organisation, offering its services to all Buddhist traditions. It aims to facilitate a significant Buddhist presence in the ever-expanding realm of computer communications technology, applying this technology to helping make the Buddha's teachings freely available to all.
• Buddhist Reflections on Death & Dying
  BuddhaNet's directory for hospice services.
• Buddhist Studies WWW Virtual Library
  This site keeps track of leading information facilities in the fields of Buddhism and Buddhist studies. Covers: Pure Land, Tibetan, Zen, Buddhist art, listservs and chat-rooms, and much more.
• DharmaNet International
  DharmaNet's "Gateways to Buddhism" is an online clearinghouse for Buddhist study and practice resources. It is home to Dharmanet's own in-house databases and collections, as well as providing links to all online Buddhist resources, large and small. This public service is coordinated by DharmaNet International and is funded entirely through donations.
• Guide to Online Buddhist Studies
  This comprehensive guide provides links to information about the three major schools of Buddhism: Mahayana, Theravada, and Vajrayana along with Buddhism's historical background.
• Metta Foundation
  Founded by Gregory Kramer the organization offers nonsectarian teachings, publications, and service programs, based upon original Buddhist principles, including specific training in the practices of Insight Dialogue and Dharma Contemplation.
• New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care
  New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care is a Buddhist organization, based in New York City, offering a year-long Buddhist Chaplaincy Training Program, retreats and programs, and outreach meditation programs in an AIDS residence, Beth Israel Medical Center, and the Continuum Center for Health and Healing.
• RIGPA Spiritual Care Program
  Based on the work of Soygal Rinpoche the the program brings together Buddhist wisdom and insight from the hospice experience. Centers around the world offer courses in spiritual care. They also offer Contemplative End of Life Care: A Seventeen-Week Certificate Program for Health Care Professionals in association with Naropa University. The course includes fifteen-week online, distance learning course and two seven-day residential sessions.
• Upaya
  A residential Buddhist practice and social community under the leadership of Roshi Joan Halifax, Ph.D. A central program of the center is the Project on Being with Dying. Over the past decade, the project has engaged in extensive training of professional and family caregivers in compassionate care of the dying. They offer an excellent seven-day Professional Training Program on Integrated End of Life Care as well as other programs integrating social action and contemplative practice.

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Loss & Grief

Resources for grief education and support. We suggest that you use online support as a supplement to face-to-face support, not as a substitute for it.

• Grief Recovery Institute
  The Institute, an internationally recognized authority, provides programs for The Compassionate Friends, The National SIDS Foundation, The National AIDS Network, The University of California at Irvine, Chapman University, and many others. This site offers a wealth of information for the those suffering loss.
• GriefNet
  GriefNet is an Internet community of persons dealing with grief, death, and major loss.
• WidowNet
  An information and self-help resource for and by widows and widowers of all ages, religious backgrounds, and sexual orientations.
• All Kids Grieve
  All Kids Grieve provides access to individuals, organizations, materials, and ideas that facilitate the possibility of growing through loss and grief for kids and the adults who care for them.
• Tom Golden's Crisis, Grief and Healing Page
  One of the most popular sites on the Net for grieving families.
• The Center for Loss and Life Transition
  Founded by Dr. Alan Wolfelt. A private organization dedicated to furthering our understanding of the complex set of emotions associated with grief. Offers professional trainings, workshops and resources.
• Compassionate Friends
  The mission of Compassionate Friends is to assist families toward the positive resolution of grief following the death of a child of any age and to provide information to help others be supportive through conferences, a magazine, and local (no-fee) support groups.
  
• Mental Health Net: Grief Resources
  Thorough list of resources and web sites available for assistance with grief and bereavement.
  

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Caregiving

Resources for caregivers of the elderly and ill that provide useful information, products, seminars, care management consulting service, and more.

• Caregiver.com
  Caregiver Media Group is a provider of information, support and guidance for family and professional caregivers. Founded in 1995, they produce Today's Caregiver magazine, the first national magazine dedicated to caregivers.
• Diversity Rx
  A nonprofit that promotes language and cultural competence to improve the quality of health care for minority, immigrant, and ethnically diverse communities.
• Family Caregiver Alliance
  The alliance provides information and resources for families, caregivers, professionals, policy makers, and the media. It focuses on Alzheimer's disease, stroke, traumatic brain injury, Parkinson's disease, ALS, and other disorders and long-term care concerns.
• CareGuide
  CareGuide is a care management company which offers a directory of more than 170,000 licensed/accredited providers of elder care services, online tools to assess your particular situation, a call center to help locate providers in your area, articles on select topics, and a community of support.

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Media

Audio, video, and books on a wide number of hospice, caregiving, and grief-related topics.

• On Our Own Terms: Moyers on Dying
  This four-part video series from Bill Moyers crosses the country from hospitals to hospices to homes to capture some of the most intimate stories ever filmed and the most candid conversations ever shared with a television audience around end-of-life care. Zen Hospice Project's volunteer program was featured in the first segment, Living With Dying.
• With Eyes Open
  KQED presented four half-hour companion shows to On Our Own Terms: honest discussions about caregiving, grief, difficult decisions, and what may lie beyond death. The first episode, Mourning, was a conversation about loss, grief, and healing facilitated by the founder of Zen Hospice Project and Metta Institute, Frank Ostaseski.
• Graceful Passages
  The 2 CD gift book of Graceful Passages offers compassion, comfort, and emotional healing for facing life-threatening illness, grieving a loved one, or caring for our soul. It includes messages spoken by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Ram Dass, Thich Nhat Hanh, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, and other mentor guides.
• Sounds True
  Sounds True provides audio, video, and music for the inner life. This link will take you to a selection of their programs on death and dying.
• New Dimensions
  New Dimensions Broadcasting Network fosters the process of living a more healthy life of mind, body and spirit while deepening our connections to self, family, community and the environment. A selection of great shows on death and dying which have aired over the years.
• National Public Radio: Exploring Death in America
  An excellent in-depth radio series providing resources, bibliographies, transcripts and audio recordings on a broad range of end-of-life related subjects

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End-of-Life Education & Policy

Resources on advocacy for quality end-of-life care, advanced directives, public policy, aid-in-dying, training opportunities, and more.

• Americans for Better Care of the Dying
  ABCD is dedicated to ensuring that all Americans can count on good end of life care. Their goals are to: build momentum for reform, explore new methods and systems for delivering care, and shape public policy.
• Association for Death Education
  A multi-disciplinary professional organization dedicated to promoting excellence in death education, bereavement counseling, and care of the dying.
• Last Acts Campaign to Improve End-of-Life Care
  A campaign to raise awareness and improve end-of-life care by a coalition of professional and consumer organizations originally funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, This site is for professionals and volunteers working to improve care of the dying.
• WebMD Health
  WebMD provides searchable information about illness and disease, the latest news, health and wellness info, and moderated bulletin boards.
• Compassion in Dying
  A nonprofit that provides national leadership for client service, legal advocacy, and public education to improve pain and symptom management and to expand end-of-life choices to include aid-in-dying for terminally ill, mentally competent adults.