Compassionate Communities in Action

Global Stories of Care, Loss and Connection

Emma Hodges, Manjula Patel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781040662281
• Subtopic: Nursing
• Index: Social Sciences

Compassionate Communities in Action: Global Stories of Care, Loss and Connection brings together practical examples of compassionate cities and communities from around the world. Together they provide a practical road map, highlighting what has worked and what has been challenging, alongside reflections from the communities profiled.

Over the past 20 years, hundreds of areas globally have worked to develop compassionate cities and communities, in order to improve death, dying, loss, and caregiving for their residents. This book, designed to support those beginning their journey and those who want to continue to develop existing initiatives, highlights:

• Different models of organisation or structure for a Compassionate Community
• How projects have engaged with wider civic society, including schools, workplaces, and the arts
• Suggestions for reorientating health and care services towards community and well-being
• The role of individual leaders in shaping grassroots activities

Demonstrating public health palliative care in practice, this guide is an essential read for people working in the field of palliative and end?of?life care, as well as academics, students, and policymakers with an interest in the area.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Licence CC-BY-NC-ND.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of contributors
• Foreword
• Introduction
• 1 Compassionate Birmingham – creating, caring, connected and supportive communities in Birmingham and beyond
• 2 Resident led – Brereton, a compassionate village
• 3 Compassionate communities in Flanders: an account of the development and implementation of Compassionate Bruges and Compassionate Herzele
• 4 Building an ecosystem of compassionate care: connecting healthcare and communities
• 5 Getxo Zurekin Basque Region Spain Compassionate Community
• 6 Compassionate Inverclyde
• 7 Compassionate communities growing in Japan: Matsuzaki and Honaminosato
• 8 From grief to belonging: the evaluation of a compassionate community movement
• 9 Oasis of Hope community-based organisation: building compassionate communities in Kenya
• 10 From balloons to bonds: the journey of the students’ initiative in palliative care
• 11 Caring Community Köln, Germany
• 12 Talking about the inevitable: Community-led change in end-of-life conversations from Northern Ireland
• 13 The Compassionate Ottawa story
• 14 Compassionate Communities and Public Health palliative care for children’s hospices, an example from Queensland, Australia
• 15 National work to support compassionate communities – learning and reflections from 17 years of work in Scotland
• 16 Translating compassion into action: building an ecosystem for Compassionate Communities Singapore
• 17 Compassionate communities: up the East Coast
• 18 The South West Compassionate Communities Network (Swccn) in Western Australia: a case study
• 19 Building a Compassionate Community through a cultural care perspective: experience from Taipei City, Taiwan
• 20 Bridging the gap in access to palliative care services through the Compassionate Communities for Uganda Initiative (Ccui)
• 21 A deep dive into community connectors
• 22 Reorientation of healthcare via community-focused service redesign
• 23 Death literacy as community practice: learning through Skills, Experience, Action, and Knowledge
• 24 Death literacy in practice – case studies from the UK
• Conclusion
• Index