Educate and Empower People to Plan Ahead & Make Their Wishes Known

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WAHA is recruiting diverse volunteers for a community advance care planning program.

Why is Advance Care Planning important?

While our culture is inclined to avoid discussions of death, death is an inevitable and potentially meaningful conclusion to life’s journey. Often choices must be made about how, when and where a person dies. We are not always prepared for these complex and stressful choices. Our loved ones want to know how to care for us and us for them when the time comes that we cannot speak for ourselves. Our health care providers need to know our preferences for end-of-life care.

What is Advanced Care Planning (ACP)?

Advance Care Planning is an organized process of communication, over the course of life, to help individuals understand, reflectupon and discuss goals, values and beliefs for future health care decisions. Advance care planning leads to documenting personal preferences in an Advance Directive so that the information is available to family, friends, and health care providers.

Making your health care choices known in advance is a gift to those you love. Join a wonderful team of trained and certified volunteers to offer advance care planning services throughout Whatcom County through our WAHA End of Life Choices program!

This is a community‐based program that engages all those 18 years and older to plan for the quality of medical care they want to receive when they’re not able to speak for themselves, normalizing conversations about those wishes, and increasing the number of advance directives that are available, honored and understood.

Volunteer Ambassadors and Facilitators receive valuable professional training to guide individuals and families in discussions of goals, values and beliefs for future health care decisions. There are also opportunities to offer community presentations if the volunteer is interested.

We welcome all inquiries.

We are also are recruiting volunteers who live in Whatcom County, outside of Bellingham, are members of diverse cultural groups, and/or are native speakers of one of the prevalent non-English language groups (Spanish, Punjabi, Russian, American Sign Language, etc.).

Please visit our website for more information and to see the Volunteer Position Descriptions