Dear readers,
This is a special issue for the Journal of Life Care Planning and the life care planning community as a whole. This Costing Framework project began in 2022, when a group of life care planners set a goal for our specialty practice. The goal was to develop a framework to serve as an educational tool regarding life care planning costing practices. What is being delivered to you now in this Special Issue is the culmination of hundreds of hours of work over almost four years. Through the years, there have been numerous life care planners who have contributed to this project. The deliverable result, consisting of a nine-chapter framework, is now ready for your review.
My involvement in this project has been small relative to the work of the members of the Costing Framework project. Nevertheless, I have been reminded over the last year of how fortunate we are to have so many life care planners who continue to strive to make this practice better. I have seen up close how co-chairs Laura Woodard and Dana Penilton worked diligently to include the voices of all who have participated in this project, working through weekends and through personal challenges to meet the goal set in 2022. I have watched contributors like Dr. Lisa Busby Thomas work into the wee hours carefully analyzing and reporting the results of the project. I witnessed up close how many enthusiastic practitioners were willing to set aside their remarkably busy caseloads to serve as volunteers on this project, not just for a few weeks, but for several years. As with any substantial work, there may be varying perspectives on this project. To those who would critique rather than contribute, I am reminded of Theodore Roosevelt’s words:
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.
Thank you to all of you who continue to step into the arena to make our specialty practice better. For any of you who want to join, there is always room for you.