How to use this
- Read each statement and tick it only if it is true for you now, not if you mean to learn it.
- Your ticks are saved in this browser on this device. They are never sent anywhere. If this browser blocks storage, the ticks still work but will not be remembered.
- This is a self-check, not a credential. Ticking every box does not certify, license or qualify you for anything, and it is not something to show an employer as proof. It is a way to see your own gaps.
- Print it when you are done, and bring the blank items as questions to your next training session or supervisor.
Your tally
Ticks are counted on this device.
1. Knowledge
You do not need clinical knowledge. You need to know the system well enough to stay in your lane and send things to the right person.
2. Boundaries
Care teams trust a doula who is predictable. Most of predictability is knowing, out loud, what you will not do.
3. Communication
With the person, the family and the team.
4. Safety and privacy
For the person, the family and you.
5. Practical
The things that make you reliable.
6. Wellbeing
A doula who is running on empty is not safe at a bedside.
Why these six groups
A care team does not need a doula to know medicine. It needs to know what the doula will do on an ordinary night and on a hard one. The groups follow that need.
| Group | What the team is really asking | Where this comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Knowledge | Will this person send clinical questions to us, or try to answer them? | Hospices must have nursing and physician services available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so there is always someone to send them to. |
| Boundaries | Will they stay non-clinical under pressure, and stay clear of referral money? | The Anti-Kickback Statute bars paying or receiving anything of value for referrals of federal health care program business. |
| Communication | Will they tell us what they saw, plainly, and only with the person's agreement? | Federal privacy guidance lets providers share with people involved in a patient's care when the patient agrees or does not object; the team decides what it shares. |
| Safety and privacy | Will they keep people, and records, safe? | Hospices must supervise volunteers in defined roles; organizations commonly ask for checks. |
| Practical | Will they turn up as promised, and describe themselves accurately? | A 2022 scoping review found that role confusion among health professionals is one of the problems doulas face. A clear written description helps. |
| Wellbeing | Will they still be steady at hour ten of a vigil? | Practice wisdom rather than a rule: the same review notes how little is yet known about doulas' impact, and a tired doula is a risk to everyone. |
If you left items unticked
That is the point of the exercise. Unticked items are not failures; they are the next thing to learn. A few suggestions:
- Unticked in Boundaries or Safety and privacy: work on these before you sit with a family beside a care team. They are the items a hospice will care about most, because they are the ones that can hurt someone.
- Unticked in Knowledge or Communication: open the linked module and do the case and the quiz. Then come back.
- Unticked in Practical: most of these are paperwork you can write in an evening. The capstone walks you through a practice portfolio you keep on your own device.
- Unticked in Wellbeing: take these seriously. A plan for yourself is part of a plan for the families you serve.
What ticking does not mean: it does not mean you are certified, that any hospice will accept you, or that you are qualified for paid work. Credentials, where they exist, come from training organizations; the resources page lists some, without ranking them.
What to bring to a first meeting
With a hospice volunteer coordinator, or with a care team when a family has engaged you:
- Your one-page description of what you do and do not do (item p01).
- An accurate account of your training: the program's name, roughly how many hours, and what it covered. If you completed the Quality Death modules, you can bring your self-kept study record, but say plainly that it is a record of study and not a credential.
- Your availability, honestly, including whether you can do nights, and who covers when you cannot.
- How to reach you, and how you would like the team to reach you.
- Readiness for checks: willingness to complete a background check and any health screening the organization requires.
- Insurance details, if you carry liability insurance.
- References, if the coordinator asks for them.
- If you are there for one family: the family's agreement that you may be included in updates, in whatever form the hospice asks for.
- Your questions (below). Coordinators notice who asks about limits and supervision.
Do not bring notes about other clients, stories that could identify anyone, or promises about what you will do that belongs to the hospice team.
Questions to ask at that meeting
- What would you like a doula, or a volunteer with doula training, to do here, and what would you rather they did not do?
- Who supervises me, and how do I reach someone at night?
- What orientation and training do you require, and how long does it take?
- What should I do, and not do, when a patient's condition changes or death occurs?
- Where and how do I record a visit, and what may I write?
- How do you handle privately engaged doulas who are already with your patients?
- Who runs your bereavement program, and how do I hand a family to it?