LOVELL — The Charlotte Hobbs Library will present an evening workshop led by Dr. Marianne Jackson and Joan Lanoie on completing Advanced Care Directives and having conversations about end-of-life values.

The workshop will be provided with free Maine Advanced Directives and help to complete them.

There will also be the opportunity to practice with various tools for opening the conversations about values, preferences and priorities.

The workshop will be held from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, April 27.

This workshop will help identify and put in writing personal, spiritual and emotional issues one may face when experiencing serious illness or end of life.

The workshop welcomes people to come as families, partners, or just friends to share their ideas together.

Jackson served in  New Hampshire as an Ob-Gyn for 25 years before leaving to complete a Masters in Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. There she worked in Patient Safety and Quality until happily returning to the Mt. Washington Valley in January of 2015.

Now retired and living in Madison, Jackson is devoting much of her energy toward making conversations about end-of-life decision making a natural and comfortable topic for families. It is her belief that people can avoid much suffering, conflict and expense by opening themselves to the choices ahead.

Jackson’s other community ties include being a Board Member of the local Habitat for Humanity, the Gibson Senior Center and the MWV Citizens for Energy Efficient Communities.

Lanoie is a former childbirth educator and now one of many advanced care planning facilitators in the Mt. Washington Valley.

She notes, “Planning for end of life is not unlike planning for bringing a new life into the world. There are many unknowns that lie ahead in both situations.

“The more informed and prepared a family is, the easier and less stressful the transition will be,” she said.

Lanoie is the President of the Board for Visiting Nurse Home and Hospice of Carroll County. She lives in Madison, New Hampshire.