About the Training

Join Gift of Life Institute for this unique learning opportunity. The virtual classroom training (VCT) is conducted online over five weeks with approximately 2-3 hours of work per week.  The VCT uses a combination of eLearning modules, instructor-led webinars, threaded discussion boards, online assignments and assessments.  The course provides an introduction to the skills and knowledge required to provide timely, compassionate, and informed donation opportunities to all donor families in a variety of commonly encountered, straightforward, and challenging situations. The target audience is professionals requesting authorization for organ donation.   

Read what others who have taken the course have said:

• The remote learning is not necessarily natural to me, however, I thought the way it was set up and executed was very thoughtful and helped facilitate balancing the demands of working full time (plus!).
• The explanation of the donation conversation being a process rather than event. That's an integral part of the donation process, and it helped to see it differently.
• Having a course specifically designed around communicating in the context of donation is helpful.
• I have actually been doing this for a long time, but I think one of the the things that has traditionally made me the most uncomfortable is the concern about need to keep a conversation flowing. I've learned in this class the value of pausing, sitting with silence and just being present. I feel like I've learned a lot more about getting beyond my own discomfort and to be completely available for my families.

VCT Highlights

• Conducted online
• Five weeks; approximately 2-3 hours of work per week
• 18.0 Category 1 CEUs for ABTC
• Combination of eLearning modules, instructor-led webinars, threaded discussion boards, online assignments and assessments

Learning Objectives

Participants will have the ability to:

• List and discuss Dual Advocacy® core concepts and fundamentals, with focus on concept that the "Donation conversation is a process...not an event."
• Engage families in a warm, caring way that uniquely personalizes the conversation for them.  
• Lead donation conversations in a way that demonstrates their own belief in the life-transforming power and possibility of each donation decision.
• Use effective transition statements in both designated and non-designated donor conversations, including responses that can be utilized to gain support for donation when families oppose their loved one's decision.
• Use story and inspirational information to offer donation to families in a way in which they might find meaning in saying yes to donation.
• Apply knowledge they have about grief, decision-making and importance of timing and meeting families' basic needs to assure that every family is making a proactive, informed and enduring donation decision.

 Faculty

Pamela Albert RN, BSN, CPTC began her career in transplantation over 30 years ago and has had the opportunity to participate in many aspects of the process since then. At New England Donor Services (formerly New England Organ Bank) Pam has worked as a donation and hospital development coordinator, educational specialist, donor family liaison, aftercare coordinator, Director of Tissue Operations and Donor Family Services.  She is currently serving as the Senior Director of  Tissue Donor Services Resource Development and is responsible for ongoing authorization training for tissue operations staff as well as coaching and mentoring new leaders in the organization.

Pam has lectured across the country on topics relating to contact between donor families and recipients, as well as grief and loss issues in the workplace. Pam is published in both Progress in Transplantation and Critical Care Nursing Clinics of North America and received The National MTF Donor Family Care Award in 2000 for her work with donor families.

 
Jennifer (Jen) Timar RN, BSN, CPTC has worked at Gift of Life Donor Program since 2004, as both an Advanced Practice Coordinator and Transplant Coordinator, she faciliated optimal organ donor processes, including the family conversation, medical management, and operative recovery. Jen has also served in varoious leadership roles, guiding and developing new staff, and has presented on both local and national levels. 

Lara Moretti, LSW, CT has been providing bereavement counseling and support for families of organ and tissue donors since 2003 at Gift of Life Donor Program (GLDP). Currently the Director of Family Support Services at GLDP, Lara has served as secretary and co-chair of the AOPO Donor Family Services Council.  She received her BS in Education and Social Policy from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL and her MS in Social Work from Columbia University in New York and was recently named a Fellow in Thanatology: Death, Dying and Bereavement. Lara has presented at AOPO's and NATCO’s national conferences and also at the national conference for the Association for Death Education and Counseling and the Society for Transplant Social Workers on donor family aftercare. In 2011, she co-authored an article about the unique grief of donor families in Progress in Transplantation.

Heather Gardiner, PhD, MPH is an associate professor of social and behavioral sciences in Temple University’s College of Public Health. Dr. Gardiner directs the Health Disparities Research Lab and the Office of Community Engaged Research and Practice, which leads growth of the college’s interdisciplinary community engagement activities. She is a mixed-methodologist with advanced training and experience with both qualitative and quantitative research designs and methodologies, including the development and implementation of protocols for in-depth and focus group interviews, inductive and deductive qualitative coding schemas and processes, structured and semi-structured surveys, and advanced statistical methods (e.g., structural equation modeling, multivariable analyses). Her program of research lies at the intersection of interpersonal health communication and organ and tissue donation and transplantation. Across these areas of research, her primary goals have been to improve the organ and tissue donation process in the United States, reduce transplant inequities, and increase access to transplantation for marginalized communities.

WEEK 1 - October 5 - October 11 

WEEK 2 - October 12 - October 18 

WEEK 3 - October 19 - October 25

WEEK 4 - October 26 - November 1 

WEEK 5 - November 2 - November 8