Our mission is to provide care to anyone experiencing the impact of a life-threatening illness, or grieving the death of a loved one.

Description:
Hospice of Santa Barbara is the second oldest "hospice" in the U.S., and is a relationship centered hospice program. Our free program integrate multiple healing experiences while raising the community's consciousness about the emotional, social, and spiritual healing opportunities death and grief present.

Our services include:

Counseling

Support Groups

Patient Care Volunteers

I Have a Friend ™ mentoring program

Complementary Therapies

Palliative Care Consultation Service

Case Management

Community Education

History:
Hospice of Santa Barbara officially opened its doors in 1974, making it the second oldest hospice program in the United States. Alice Heath, who founded Hospice of Santa Barbara with the help of Altrusa Club and other interested citizens, served as our founding President and first Executive Director.

In 1980, Hospice of Santa Barbara partnered with the Santa Barbara Visiting Nurse Association (VNA) to participate in the Hospice Demonstration Project. A federally funded study that made hospice care reimbursable by Medicare. In 1990, Hospice of Santa Barbara relinquished its home health agency license to collaborate again with the VNA to provide hospice services.

Today Hospice of Santa Barbara is a volunteer hospice organization- a hospice that emphasizes the emotional, social and spiritual care needs of the terminally ill and their families. As a volunteer hospice organization, we provide all our services free of charge. We do not provide nursing care. We do work closely with all home health agencies, certified hospice programs and private duty agencies to met the nursing needs of patients.

Current Executive Director Gail Rink assumed leadership of Hospice of Santa Barbara in 2001. We celebrated our 30th anniversary in 2004; the same year, we received the 2004 Health Care Hero Award from the Santa Barbara Neighborhood Clinics.

2007 has been another milestone year in our growth and development, including a $33 million gift from the DiStefano Trust to the Santa Barbara Hospice Foundation, which accepts and invests endowment funds to sustain and enrich the many programs of Hospice of Santa Barbara.

Contact people:

Koralea Velasquez, Administrative Assistant, (phone) Dana VanderMey, Director Of Volunteer Services, (phone) Gabriela Dodson, Director Of Clinical Services, (phone)

Office fax number: (805) 563-8821

Address:

2050 Alameda Padre Serra, Suite 100 Santa Barbara, CA 93103 (See a map)

Web Site: http://www.hospiceofsantabarbara.org

Directions:

From 101 South: Exit Mission Street and turn left onto Mission Street. From 101 North: Exit Mission Street and turn right on Mission Street. Turn left onto Laguna Street and Right onto East Los Olivos Street (the Santa Barbara Mission will be on. . . (more)