Top 10 Tips to Keep Your Tribe In the Know: Mastering updates on your loved one’s illness
When a loved one faces a life-altering diagnosis, the burning question on everyone's mind is, 'How can we help?' Discover 10 powerful tips and resources to keep family and friends updated on the journey towards healing.
PostHope: An online journal that allows you to custom tailor your care website with the features you need. Enable fundraising, make your site private, approve posts before they are visible, or don't. It's all up to you. A good friend recently used PostHope to communicate the health of her husband who suffered from a brain tumor. As a follower it was easy to use and was a positive experience for us and the family.
Lotsa Helping Hands: A care calendar website and the easiest way to organize meals and other help & support for friends & family in need.
CaringBridge: Online website for sharing health updates with family and friends. We used this platform to apprise family and friends of Kris’ treatment and found it easy to use.
Be Mindful of Donation Requests: The one negative we found in using CaringBridge is that as a non-profit they used our page about Kris to solicit donations from visitors to the page to keep the platform up and running. That didn’t bother me. What I did take issue with was how they frame the solicitation in a way that makes many users mistakenly think their donations go to the patient and family. Knowing how generous our friends and family can be, we felt compelled to confirm that the donors understood where their money went. Most did not. They wanted the money to go to us, thereby embarrassing them for not reading carefully the “fine print” of the donation request, and awkward for us because it sounded like we were asking them to get a refund and redirect the money to us.
Traditional Social Media: Private groups and unique hashtags on platforms like Facebook and Instagram can keep family and friends informed, but success depends on others using social media and having the algorithms choose to send your messages to them.
Online, Live Meetings: Host regular updates through Zoom, Skype, or other live streaming services to offer real-time interaction, reassurance, and comfort.
Email: Send regular emails, especially useful for sharing links to journal entries, updates, or live meetings.
Maintain Privacy: When using online platforms, consider adjusting privacy settings to control who can access updates and contribute.
Include Multimedia: Use platforms that allow you to upload pictures and videos to provide a more comprehensive view of the situation.
Coordinate Support: Utilize these platforms not only for updates but also to instruct friends and family on how they can help by donating meals or providing other services.
We hope these tips were helpful. If you have found other tips or resources to be helpful, shoot us a note and tell us about them.
Cheers!
Corey
P.S. Don’t forget to check out our free downloads to help in your personal end-of-life planning.
