By Kathryn West, Certified Listener Poet, Cohort 11 Summer 2025
Though The Good Listening Project (TGLP) and Grace House Akron weren’t designed with one another in mind, their new partnership makes it seem like they very well could have been. Their collaboration is just a few months old and already having an important impact on those involved.
“No one should have to die alone.”
Grace House was founded in 2022 to provide residential comfort and hospice care in a home-like environment for those who are terminally ill and experiencing housing insecurity or do not have access to a caregiver. As Grace House Executive Director & Co-founder Holly Klein, MNPM, RN, shares, the ethos of the program is that “no one should have to die alone.” Up to 6 residents—and, when needed, their furry friends—can live at Grace House at a given time, with 24-hour access to housing and caregiving services. Residents receive not just physical care, but emotional and spiritual attention as well, including a new initiative to expand the ways in which life reviews can be done. And this is where TGLP comes in.
The connection between Grace House and TGLP began when Kevin Dieter, MD, FAAHPM, HMDC, a physician specializing in the education and practice of end-of-life care joined Cohort 11 of TGLP’s Listener Poet training. Given his lifelong commitment to accompanying those who are actively dying, Dieter’s decision to approach Grace House about being the site of his practicum was an easy one. Dieter and Klein have known each other for the past decade and a half through their work in hospice and end-of-life care and Dieter has been involved with Grace House since Klein began to conceptualize its design.
During his practicum, Dieter worked with one long-term resident and several of Grace House’s volunteers. The experience was a positive one all around, with the resident even choosing to read his poem at Grace House’s annual gala this fall. Now, with Klein’s enthusiastic collaboration, Kevin and the TGLP team are figuring out how to expand these efforts.
One place they’ve already found a fit is with the nursing students who complete a two-week rotation with Grace House. Klein describes the experience as one focused not on medication management or specific clinical skills, but rather an opportunity to learn to really listen to and be with those who are sick and dying. Students are now offered the chance to complete a Listener Poet Session at the end of their rotation.
“Good vigiling requires holding an intentional, sacred space and presence.”
Another space of synergy between TGLP and Grace House is in using Listener Poet Sessions and the poems that come from them as part of a resident’s life review process. Grace House is working to incorporate a Listener Poet Session into each resident’s intake, with plans to then have the poem included in the life review scrapbook that is made by/for each resident; these scrapbooks are either gifted to family members after a resident has died or, if there is no one to receive the scrapbook, kept by Grace House to be revisited by the many volunteers who get to know and care for each resident.
Dieter also shares how helpful the poems can be for volunteers as they sit vigil with those very near the end of life. “Good vigiling,” he says, “requires holding an intentional, sacred space and presence” and is incredibly individual; these poems can be used to better know the person with whom you are sitting vigil or read back to them.
When talking with Klein, Dieter, or TGLP’s Executive Director Jenny Hegland about this collaboration, the excitement and warmth is palpable. With only positive feedback about the experience thus far, it’s clear that this collaboration is one that will continue and grow.
Grace House Executive Director & Co-founder Holly Klein, MNPM, RN
Kevin Dieter, MD, FAAHPM, HMDC, Certified Listener Poet Cohort 11