Hospice of Hope’s Mountain Pathway Wins Kentucky Association of Hospice & Palliative Care Award

Hospice of Hope was recently honored by the Kentucky Association of Hospice and Palliative Care for their work and develop of the Mountain Pathway program. Mountain Pathway is a program created five years ago to fulfill a need of a family-focused grief program within our communities. 

For several years, Hospice of Hope partnered with larger metropolitan grief programs however; they were not addressing the needs of our own service area with specific interest in summer school support. Realizing that there were needs for these services locally, Hospice of Hope chose to create and develop an appropriate program. Mountain Pathway was chosen as a theme to accurately communicate the challenges of grief . “Facing the pain of grief is like climbing a mountain.  When we walk and climb together we can make better progress”. 

A “camp” theme is intertwined throughout the entire day and includes a trail guide’s welcome, campfire songs, and base camp activities. A backpack is given to each participant with specific contents that are symbolic of survival skills / coping mechanisms of grief. This program, now four years young, is a highly valuable tool to help young people cope with grief & loss.  Highly skilled chaplains are there to help guide and educate children to embrace grief and to teach them that death & dying is a very natural stage of life but most importantly to teach them that they are not alone. 

David Wirth, Hospice Chaplain added. “One or two of us can not do this well.  It takes the support of our community make programs like Mountain Pathway successful”.

This program has been recognized by both Kentucky and Ohio as an outstanding and innovative program that fulfills family grief needs within our communities.  If you are interested in learning more about the 2007 Mountain Pathway programs please call Hospice of Hope at 606-759-4050.