RESOURCES

End-of-life care planning can be confusing, so we’ve created a helpful step-by-step guide to everything you need to know to begin your planning, including links to all the documents you’ll need in the State of Arizona to complete your plans. We’ve also added some helpful resources for having the conversation with loved ones, as well as legal resources.

We have a number of community Partners who provide personalized assistance and support for individuals completing their advance care planning. We have listed these Partners below, including information about their organization and who they serve. We encourage you to reach out to them directly to explore utilizing their resources.

Catholic Community Services

Who They Serve: Children, Adults, Families

Catholic Community Services’ (CCS) St. Jeanne Jugan Ministry with Elders provides Pastoral Care of the Sick to individuals living in long-term nursing facilities while also engaging in the broader spirituality of aging and end-of-life preparation. CCS also provides “Prepare for the Journey” workshops with information on Advance Care Planning and Advance Directives.

The Dunbar Coalition/The Coalition for African-American Health and Wellness

Who They Serve: African American Community

With the goal of providing health information and resources to the African American community, The Coalition for African-American Health and Wellness promotes and protects the health of Pima County residents. The Coalition provides “Honoring a Life” workshops with information on Advance Care Planning and Advance Directives. For more information, please contact Algurie Wilson at algurietreks500@gmail.com or call 520-401-2177.

Interfaith Community Services

Who They Serve: Older Adults, Adults with Disabilities

With a single mission in mind, to help people in need achieve stable, healthy, and independent lives, ICS works to to assist the community gain access to resources, social support, education, housing, employment, food, and healthcare. ICS offers “Honoring Our Lives”. This Advance Care Planning program is presented in free workshops with the goal of preparing people for challenging circumstances such as serious illness, aging, and death. 

Pima Council on Aging

Who They Serve: Older Adults and their Families

With a single mission in mind, to help people in need achieve stable, healthy, and independent lives, ICS works to to assist the community gain access to resources, social support, education, housing, employment, food, and healthcare. ICS offers “Honoring Our Lives”. This Advance Care Planning program is presented in free workshops with the goal of preparing people for challenging circumstances such as serious illness, aging, and death. 

Southern Arizona Senior Pride

Who They Serve: LGBTQI+ Older Adults

Senior Pride provides support to LGBTQI+ older adults for advance medical care planning. Their goal is to encourage everyone to talk about and document what’s important so that they can live well and end well. Senior Pride offers free “Honoring a Life” community workshops that provide education and insight about advance healthcare topics and documents.

Step Up To Justice

Who They Serve: Low Income Individuals and Families

Step Up to Justice is a full-service free civil legal center for low-income individuals and families in Pima County powered by the talents of volunteer attorneys and the efficient use of technology and funding. SU2J provides end-of-life planning that generates accurate and individualized documents for low-income community members.

Our Community Based Education Action Team has put together this helpful glossary of terms related to end-of-life care planning to help everyone better understand the nuances and specifics of the language that we use.

A core part of our work is educating our community members about end of life, including cultural practices, traditions, and services that exist to help everyone in Tucson and Southern Arizona live well and die well. We have listed Partner organizations that provide unique education and community resources below.

The Crosswalk

Roots & Roads Community Hospice Foundation

Roots & Roads Community Hospice Foundation works to ensure hospice patients and their loved ones are empowered to transform the end-of-life experience into the final act of living well. With funding and support from EOLCP and United Way of Tucson, they’ve created The Crosswalk to help individuals and families navigate palliative care and hospice options that exist in Southern Arizona.

Funeral Consumers Alliance of Arizona

The mission of the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Arizona (FCA) is to educate consumers and to establish, promote, and protect their rights, both directly and in support of member organizations,in the planning and purchase of funeral and memorial arrangements. FCA provides education focused on helping community members secure simple, dignified funerals and cremations at reasonable costs.

Southwest Folklife Alliance

Southwest Folklife Alliance (SFA) strives to build more equitable and vibrant communities by celebrating the everyday expressions of culture, heritage, and diversity rooted in the Greater Southwest and U.S. Mexico Border Corridor. The End-of-Life Continuum project at SFA shares cultural knowledge about traditions, expressions, and practices associated with end of life, grief, mourning and death in Southern Arizona’s folk, ethnic, occupational, faith-based, and alternative communities.

The learn more about the cultural resources available through SFA, visit their website.

Tucson Home Sharing

Tucson Home Sharing’s mission is to provide education, outreach and advocacy toward creating and sustaining home sharing partnerships while also supporting all other beneficial planning outcomes for healthy aging and the end of life.  Monthly Public Gatherings and Next Steps Workshops are provided free of charge to individuals and organizations serving older adults.

Walking Each Other Home: Cultural Practices at End of Life

The Southwest Folklife Alliance’s End of Life:  Continuum Project, provided a rich exhibition immersion through videos, images, stories, installations, and interactions at the Arizona State Museum located at the University of Arizona from September 2022 – February 2023.  The success of this exhibition is showcased and encapsulated into this booklet to memorialize the stories and traditions of End-of-Life practices in Southern Arizona and the Southwest cultures.