Hospice and Palliative Care Social Work

The clinical, coordination, and advocacy functions of the social worker in end-of-life care settings, from symptom management support to care planning facilitation and family communication.

Anticipatory Grief and Bereavement

The grief response that begins before a death and continues after it — its clinical presentation, its distinction from post-death bereavement, and how to meet families where the grief actually is.

Family-Centered Care and Systems Assessment

Treating the patient and family as the unit of care, and conducting biopsychosocial assessments that account for how the family system will shape — and be shaped by — the illness trajectory.

End-of-Life Planning and Advance Directives

Facilitating the conversations, legal instruments, and family communication that determine whether a patient’s final wishes are honored when they can no longer advocate for themselves.

Trauma-Informed Clinical Practice

Understanding how past trauma activates in medical and end-of-life settings, and designing clinical contact that reduces the risk of retraumatization for vulnerable patients and families.

Secondary Traumatic Stress and Practitioner Sustainability

The cumulative impact of sustained empathic engagement with grief and loss, and the professional structures that allow clinical social workers to sustain effective practice across a career.

Biopsychosocial Assessment

The practice of evaluating a client’s biological, psychological, and social circumstances as an integrated system — the foundational clinical tool of social work in medical settings.

Behavioral Science and Habit Formation

The mechanisms by which environment shapes sustained behavior, applied to clinical practice, patient health behavior, and the practitioner’s own professional development.