As 2025 comes to a close, our Community Outreach Coordinators, Shona and Rehman, have been reflecting on their experiences, lessons, and challenges since joining Princess Alice Hospice earlier this year.

Shona’s reflections

As 2025 comes to a close, I’ve been reflecting on the past year and my first four months working at Princess Alice Hospice. When I graduated with my MSc in January, I wasn’t sure what the year ahead would hold. Then, in August, I began my role as Community Outreach Coordinator at the Hospice. While I had hoped to return to the healthcare field professionally, I never imagined working in end-of-life care and bereavement services!

The team has been incredibly welcoming, and I’ve really enjoyed discovering what community outreach can mean in practice. Learning from local organisations and community groups in Kingston and Richmond about the amazing support available has been both interesting and inspiring. It’s wonderful to see a shared commitment to reaching and supporting those in our communities who need help. Moving from studying health inequalities, carer relationships, and access barriers at university to now experiencing firsthand what truly inclusive ‘Care for All’ looks like has been an insightful and compelling journey.

As a young adult, I have the privilege of feeling that end-of-life care is something far in the future. Yet hospice services, whether palliative care, carer support, or bereavement care, can become part of our lives at any time, often unexpectedly. Like many challenging topics around wellbeing, it’s vital that we keep opening up conversations about death, dying, and loss, and work to break down stigma.

I feel grateful to be part of that conversation and to collaborate with the Hospice and other incredible local organisations to help individuals and families access care and live with loss. I’m excited to see what 2026 brings!

Rehman’s reflections

I had no prior experience of working for a hospice, so in the beginning I was slightly anxious about the work and the new environment. However, I must acknowledge that the welcoming and supportive attitude of everyone working at Princess Alice Hospice made it easier for me to adjust and learn about the Hospice work. The help and support available from the wider team were simply incredible and helped me tremendously in my learning journey.

Over the last four months, I have explored and reached out to local community groups and had the chance to learn more about their work. Most of those groups were very receptive to our work, and some of them were quite surprised when they learned about the range of support services we provide to the local communities, including Talk, Listen, Connect and the Compassionate Neighbours programme. One of the great learning curves for me is the whole process of myth busting about hospice work and finding ways to address the barriers to accessing hospice services. This process also gave me insights into community needs, challenges, and gaps in services. We are aiming to bridge those gaps through increased partnership working with local stakeholders.

The Hospice’s inclusion strategy places a greater emphasis on providing support to people with learning disabilities and people experiencing homelessness and poverty. Over the past few months, I have had the opportunity to meet and develop connections with many amazing local organisations that support marginalised and vulnerable groups in the Kingston and Richmond areas. I also had opportunities to speak about our services at various events and activities, where I was able to reach diverse audiences.

Keeping in consideration the importance of faith and spirituality in end-of-life care, we have a multi-faith team that understands the faith and spiritual needs of bereaved families. Over the months, I have reached out to diverse faith groups and built connections with them. Along with our outreach team, I spoke about the Hospice’s work at the recent Halo Inter Faith meeting at Multicultural Richmond. Based on my previous experience of working in the interfaith sector, I aim to develop a strong interfaith community network for Richmond and Kingston that can further support our work.

As part of my outreach work, I also had the opportunity to build connections with Kingston University, St Mary’s University, and Roehampton University. I proactively attended their events and explored areas of collaboration, especially with their Student Wellbeing teams, Spirituality teams, and Student Unions.

I believe one of the most fulfilling aspects of working at a hospice is supporting people through bereavement and grief. I can understand that grief can be a very isolating journey, as author Joan Didion says:

“Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees, blind the eyes, and obliterate the dailiness of life.”

Supporting people through this journey is extremely important. Princess Alice Hospice has been supporting communities for nearly four decades through its specifically designed bereavement support initiatives. These programmes, including Community Bereavement Cafés, Walk and Talks, and Man Shed, are open to those who need support through their bereavement journeys.

As a Community Outreach Coordinator, my role primarily entails reaching out to diverse communities and introducing them to our services. In line with the Hospice’s inclusion policy, I identify and address any barriers to accessing our services. I am full of gratitude for the lessons I have learned so far about how to live a hopeful and meaningful life until the end. I am proud to be part of Princess Alice Hospice and to be able to support people during some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives.

“Our job is to make music with what remains.” – Itzhak Perlman