Life Stories Program at Calvary Health Care, Adelaide.

   

 

THE LIFE STORIES PROGRAM  

Thank you for your interest in the Life Stories Program at Calvary Health Care, Adelaide. Please consider  the following information carefully to help you decide if you would like to formally apply to become a  Story Recorder and attend an interview. 

The Life Stories Program was established in 2007 and offers people in palliative care the opportunity  to record their life story, reflections or thoughts. 

One of the key principles underpinning our Program is the belief that the process of telling one’s story  can be therapeutic, life-affirming, and assist in improving a person’s emotional and spiritual wellbeing.  The people are at the centre of everything we do: you not conduct interviews with the person, but  rather listen with an open mind and heart, and without judgement. The published story is simply a  bonus. 

The Life Stories Program works around the person’s needs and circumstances to suit their wishes and  priorities. They decide how many sessions they want and are able to do, with a maximum of six. The  duration of each session can vary between 10 – 60 minutes and is determined by how much the person  wants to share and how they feel at the time. No two Life Stories are the same, so there is no standard  look. This is their story and they decide what goes into it.  

As a trained volunteer, you might work with people in the Mary Potter Hospice, Calvary Adelaide  Hospital, Calvary North Adelaide Hospital, Calvary Central Districts Hospital or in the Community. They  (and their families) know their diagnosis, can be very young or quite elderly, and all ages in between.  

For each story, you are assigned an experienced volunteer Mentor who will answer questions, provide support, help debrief, and review story drafts as part of our quality assurance process. Working with a  Mentor also ensures you maintain focus on self-care and maintain professional boundaries. 

When you meet with a person (a session) you take a voice recorder (provided by us) and or a mobile  phone and record the session. You do not ask questions or lead the story in any way. After the session  you transcribe the recording (using software provided by us), copy this into a word document, and  lightly edit the words carefully staying faithful to their words and speech patterns. As a Story Recorder  you do not engage in creative writing.  

Because each story and person are different, it is difficult to give you a ‘weekly hours’ estimate. You  will spend most of your time on transcribing and editing. For every one hour of voice recording, it can  take up to 4 hours to transcribe, it can be an onerous task depending on your level of speed and  accuracy. Then there is travel time, time with the person, liaising with your mentor; it can easily add  up to 8 hours a week for a period of 10 weeks.  

As mentioned before, the Program works around the person’s needs and you need to have the  flexibility to go along with that. Unfortunately, you cannot be a Story Recorder if you only have time  during the weekends or in the evenings. 

  

Before you ‘accept’ a story, you will need to consider your capacity at the time to actually do the story.  It certainly doesn’t mean you have to drop everything and you can’t do anything else, but periodically  personal circumstances can mean you will need to ‘decline’ a story, which is not a problem.  

Where to from here:  

If this all sounds good AND you have good Word processing, email and editing skills, then we would  like to invite you to submit an application form.  

Important dates application process:  

∙ Monday 28 November: applications close. Late applications cannot be accepted.

∙ Tuesday 6 and Wednesday 7 December: interviews & referee checks  

∙ Tuesday 13 December: outcome of interviews and invites to training 

Important dates training; you are required to attend all 4 days of the program:

∙ Thursday 19 January 2022, 9:00 – 4:00 approx.  

∙ Wednesday 25 January 2022, 9:00 – 4:00 approx.  

∙ Thursday 2 February 2022, 9:00 – 4:00 approx.  

∙ Thursday 9 February 2022, 9:00 – 4:00 approx.  

All training is conducted at Calvary North Adelaide.  

Other compulsory elements:  

∙ Current and valid Police Check 

∙ Current and valid Working with Children check 

 (Calvary can help arrange these two and there is no cost to you). 

∙ Completion of Calvary Orientation 

∙ Completion of Calvary online modules such as fire safety, manual handling and hand hygiene ∙ Up-to-date COVID vaccinations  

To request the application form, please email CHCA-Volunteers@calvarycare.org.au