St. Timothy's addresses 'Family Challenges'

photo St. Timothy's Episcopal Church is holding a seminar series dealing with end-of-life issues titled Family Challenges. From left are St. Timothy's Pastoral Care Committee member and seminar organizer Anne Johnson, the Rev. John Dukes and Sissy Hodges, vestry liaison to the Pastoral Care Committee.

The Pastoral Care Committee at St. Timothy's Episcopal Church is holding a series of free workshops that are open to the community titled Family Challenges, which deal with the end-of-life issues all families have experienced or will experience.

Topics of the two remaining workshops are elder law, which is set for April 27, and Alexian Brothers' Live at Home Program, scheduled for May 4. Both talks begin at 10 a.m.

"It has come to our attention that many of our parishioners are going through bereavement issues with family members," said Anne Johnson, Pastoral Care Committee member who helped organize the series. "We thought this would be helpful to many in the community."

It was decided to call the series Family Challenges because dealing with the issues addressed, such as aging and memory loss, are a huge challenge for many families, she explained.

"Families need to have information on how to deal with this because it's a crisis in most families," said Johnson. "We just feel it's something that needs to be presented to help people get through the process."

Speaker Dana Perry, an elder law specialist, will lead the talk focused on elder law. Topics to be covered include durable power of attorney, living wills and wills and revocable trust.

"Even for family members who don't have someone going through this process, it's good to have those things in place ahead of time," said Johnson. "A lot of people don't even think about these things until the end of a person's life."

Katherine Mink will speak at the next session about Alexian Brothers' Live at Home Program. Johnson said Alexian Brothers' philosophy is to keep people in their homes as long as possible while providing the assistance they need to do so.

Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions about the services offered to those who are still able to live at home as well as those who are not.

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