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For more information about The Althea Foundation, please see the following articles.

The UCSF Insider

History

The Althea Foundation was founded in 2002, by Alexsis de Raadt-St. James and Mark Hoffman.

Alexsis realized there was a need for a comprehensive education, training and research program focusing on difficult, neglected and life-defining mental health issues after she experienced four deaths in her family within a 14-month period. She shouldered the responsibility of passing on the news to other members of her family, including her children.

Mark served in the Army during the Vietnam War and became a Casualty Notification Officer (CNO). He feels he could have performed these notifications with more empathy and compassion if there had been information and training procedures to help him better understand the death notification process.

Death Notification

The Althea Foundation was originally established to help people better understand death notification, one of life's most challenging and profound experiences - for both notifiers and next of kin.

Increasing awareness and education about this extremely difficult and emotional event - which at some point will affect us all - is crucial because poorly delivered notification can have serious and lasting mental and physical health consequences for both the notifier and next of kin.

Our compassionate approach makes this wrenching and often overwhelming experience more tolerable and accessible for the notifiers and those notified. We are trying to offer grieving parties as much comfort as possible by injecting empathy into the process; we are trying to offer notifiers as much solace as possible by introducing structure and guidance into the process.

These issues are particularly relevant in the uncertain post-9/11 world, which forces us to confront the ever-present threat of terrorist activities. The program is also especially relevant in view of the ongoing military operations in Iraq.

• The Althea Foundation's death notification and survivor care program is the first comprehensive education, training and treatment program designed to address the needs of the survivors and those tasked with death notification.
• The primary goals of the program are to provide military, law-enforcement, health care workers and emergency medical personnel with the necessary training tools to assist in coping with the inherent stress of death notification duties, and to address the emotional and practical needs of the families of the deceased.
• The program's advanced learning tools currently support institutions such as the U.S. Army and Scotland Yard - all of which are frequently charged with the responsibility of death notification.

The Althea Foundation's death notification and survivor care training curriculum, created in partnership with the Psychiatry Department at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), is disseminated via learning technologies: Web-based text, Web-based streaming videos, interactive Web conferencing and a 1- 800 number. It is a maturing rather than stagnant curriculum, and it is moving from clinical consensus to evidence-based practices.

One of the first training modules that has been developed and implemented is a death notification protocol. The protocol is delivered via a 1-800 number and prepares notification officers anywhere, anytime so they can provide the best possible support at the time for notification for survivor families.

The Althea Foundation offers an additional focus on the notifier because the impact of performing death notifications can be especially hard on those charged with this task - short- and long-term.

The Althea Foundation also wants to provide information for those who may be interested in supporting institutions and agencies that are frequently called upon to perform death notification.