2020 SESSIONS
NEW SESSION INFORMATION WILL CONTINUE TO BE ADDED
UNTIL REGISTRATION OPENS on december 20th
Dr. Fraser Black, Oceanna Hall, Shauna Janz, Andrew Langford – Keynote Panel
In Mourning: An Exploration of Grief, Sorrow and Bereavement
MORE ABOUT FRASER, OCEANNA, SHAUNA, ANDREW
Dr. Fraser Black is the Associate Director of the Palliative Access Program with the Brussels based NGO – International Network for Cancer Treatment and Research as well a director with TwoWorlds Cancer Collaboration. He has been involved with palliative care initiatives in many countries including Nepal, India, Tanzania and Brazil over the past 17 years. He previously served as a director on the board of the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care. He is also a facilitator with the BC Association for Living Mindfully (BCALM) providing mindfulness training in a group medical setting for individuals living with depression, anxiety and chronic pain. Victoria has been his home since 2002 and when not here can often be found at his ‘off the grid’ cabin on an island off the northern tip of Vancouver Island where every day he says he usually acquires a new skill or a new scar (or both).
Oceanna Hall, MA currently works in the Department of Spiritual Health, VIHA. Oceanna does research in the relationship Spiritual Health plays at end of life and in long term care. She also has research interests in World Religions, Mythology, Folklore and Comparative Religion; of particular interest is how the classic human archetypes manifest in all spiritual traditions .
Shauna Janz, MA is dedicated to creating effective healing spaces for reaching into the rough and beautiful places that are a catalyst for transformation, personally and collectively. She offers support, mentoring, facilitation and training in grief, ritual and ancestral healing. Shauna works with individuals, families and communities, locally and internationally. She is the founder of Sacred Grief, an online school offering various programs dedicated to nurturing dignity and resilience through grief and loss. She has been designing and delivering trauma-informed grief support programs since 2008. Audiences have included non-profit organizations, local and provincial government, First Nation bands and organizations, post-secondary education institutions, school district teams, small rural communities and international forums. Shauna is currently also a trainer with the BC Bereavement Helpline, and was the Executive Director and lead facilitator for 10 years with Learning Through Loss serving youth with grief support and education. She was founder of the Victoria Holistic Death Care Gatherings now being facilitated by other community members, and was a co-visionary for the first year of Deathly Matters. www.shaunajanz.com
Andrew Langford (Facilitator) is a Victoria entrepreneur, leader, and certified coach. Driven by the values of balance, discipline, joy, and adventure, along with a passion for entrepreneurship and leadership, Andrew created a mobile bartending business and launched his Leadership Development Coaching practice in 2017. He’ll bring his integrity, expertise, and facilitation skills to our Deathly Matters Keynote Panel in May 2020. www.defineyourleadership.com
Dr. Rosanne Beuthin, Oceanna Hall
MAID – Understanding and Navigating Medical Assistance in Dying
Session Descriptor coming soon
MORE ABOUT ROSANNE, OCEANNA
Dr. Rosanne Beuthin, RN, PhD completed her post graduate nursing at the University of Victoria and is an Adjunct Professor. She works as a nurse consultant for Island Health and has been the coordinator for the Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) Program since 2016. She has been involved with research into advanced illness since 2009, and has focused on metaphor, spirituality and death and dying.
Rosanne’s goal has been and continues to be, inspiring relational practice and ethical care. Her practice reflects a heartfelt conviction that we are the other and are all connected. She is an advocate for patient choice and believes it is crucial that we invite, honour, and lean into patient stories; that we hear and accept each individual’s unique lived experience without judgement.
Oceanna Hall, MA currently works in the Department of Spiritual Health, VIHA. Oceanna does research in the relationship Spiritual Health plays at end of life and in long term care. She also has research interests in World Religions, Mythology, Folklore and Comparative Religion; of particular interest is how the classic human archetypes manifest in all spiritual traditions .
Shauna Janz
Getting To the Heart of it- Supporting Healthy Grief Expression
Grieving is a learned skill, yet many people did not receive the opportunity to learn how to relate to their grief, how to recognize it, and how to then express it in meaningful and healthy ways. Much of this is due to historical disruptions of intact cultural and ancestral life-ways, leaving individuals and families under-resourced for supporting the healing transformation that grief invites.
In this experiential workshop, we will explore foundational concepts and practices to support grief expression in oneself and when helping others. Participants will leave with an understanding of how to recognize different grieving styles and how to create simple effective rituals that support healthy grieving. The workshop offers a framework that can be adapted to diverse cultural contexts, and includes personal reflection, sharing, and handouts. www.shaunajanz.com
MORE ABOUT SHAUNA
Shauna Janz, MA is dedicated to creating effective healing spaces for reaching into the rough and beautiful places that are a catalyst for transformation, personally and collectively.
She offers support, mentoring, facilitation and training in grief, ritual and ancestral healing. Shauna works with individuals, families and communities, locally and internationally. She is the founder of Sacred Grief, an online school offering various programs dedicated to nurturing dignity and resilience through grief and loss. She has been designing and delivering trauma-informed grief support programs since 2008. Audiences have included non-profit organizations, local and provincial government, First Nation bands and organizations, post-secondary education institutions, school district teams, small rural communities and international forums.
Shauna is currently also a trainer with the BC Bereavement Helpline, and was the Executive Director and lead facilitator for 10 years with Learning Through Loss serving youth with grief support and education. She was founder of the Victoria Holistic Death Care Gatherings now being facilitated by other community members, and was a co-visionary for the first year of Deathly Matters.
Pashta Marymoon
Session Descriptor coming soon
Pashta MaryMoon is a Death Midwife with Journeying Beyond, and the co-founder of CINDEA who co-sponsors her comprehensive workshop on family-led home funerals “By My Own Heart and Hands” — where participants prepare for the practical elements of doing a home funeral within their own family, group of friends, or communities. She is the former chair of the Disability Advisory Council for Dying with Dignity, is an original member of the End of Life Professionals Collective, and is a Funeral Celebrant.
Ashley Mollison, Katie Leahy, Bernice Kamano, Katie Thorne
Developing Compassionate Inner City Communities
Proponents of Compassionate Communities urge us to recognize that 95% of dying is non-medical. They advocate a return to the social aspects of palliative care that are developed, offered, and advanced by members of the public and civil society organizations such as schools and churches. Yet, many in our society are not considered part of this ‘public’ and are excluded from civil society. Populations made vulnerable by racialization, classism, inadequate housing, and discrimination based on mental illness, substance use and disabilities, are often diagnosed late, experience barriers to care at end-of-life, and wind up dying with needs unmet. Their caregivers (e.g., ‘chosen’ and street family, front line workers) are often unrecognized, unsupported, and left behind, deeply bereaved.
In this workshop, you will learn about research and initiatives underway to build capacity in death, dying, grief and loss in Victoria’s inner city including: (1) Equity in Palliative Approaches to Care (ePAC) – a community-based research collaborative building palliative approaches to care where people live and die in the inner city; (2) The Palliative Outreach Resource Team (PORT) – an clinical service helping people with life-limiting conditions and their caregivers access palliative care in the face of inequities; and (3) Work underway to build palliative approaches to care among Indigenous people who have been dispossessed and displaced from their “home” lands and communities. www.equityinpalliativecare.com
MORE ABOUT ASHLEY, KATIE, BERNICE, KATIE
Ashley Mollison is the project coordinator for the Equity in Palliative Approaches to Care (ePAC) collaborative. For over 10 years, Ashley has held various positions (volunteer, researcher, front line worker, community organizer, and “chosen” family member) working to advance the health and political power of populations facing social and structural inequity. She recently became a PhD student in the Social Dimensions of Health Program at UVic.
Katie Leahy is the nurse coordinator for the palliative outreach resource team (PORT). She has been working in community-based palliative care for the past 8 years with Island Health, and prior to this she worked as a shelter support worker with the Victoria Cool Aid Society. Katie was drawn to working with those experiencing structural vulnerability at end-of-life after witnessing the inequity in access to services, care, and support for Victoria’s most marginalized populations.
Bernice Kamano has lived and worked in the Victoria area for the past 30 years and is a member of the Da’naxda’xw First Nation Band from the Kwakwaka’waka Nation. For the past 12 years, Bernice has worked with the homeless First Nations community. She has worked with the Aboriginal Coalition to End Homelessness and is currently the Indigenous Outreach Coordinator for the Portland Hotel Society. Bernice is honoured to do the work she does with the homeless First Nations community, supporting people with challenges, and helping to make a difference.
Katie Thorne has been working with structurally vulnerable populations in social services since 2006. Since moving to Victoria in 2014, she’s worked in case management and support roles with Pacifica Housing Society, AIDS Vancouver Island and 713 Outreach. Katie is passionate about providing person centred care and finds this ethos especially important in serving those at end-of-life.
Maggi Moreton and Lorna Ross
Hospice and Palliative Care: Understanding a New Language at End of Life
So what does Hospice/Palliative care mean to you? Join long time health providers, Maggi Moreton and Lorna Ross, for an interactive conversation around care options at end of life. Bring your questions and your curiosity and together you will explore and attempt to unravel the challenges of the language used in the hospice/ palliative care community.
MORE ABOUT MAGGI and LORNA
Maggi Moreton RN CHPCN (c) has worked in Palliative Hospice care at VIHA for 30 years , most recently as Clinical Nurse Leader of the Saanich Peninsula Hospital palliative care unit . Recently retired from full time work . she continues to be involved in the palliative community and works on a casual basis in the Saanich Peninsula Hospital palliative care unit.
Lorna Ross RN MA CHPCN (c)works with the Palliative and End of Life program at Island Health in the role of a Palliative Care Coordinator for the South Island. Lorna consults across the continuum of healthcare, providing palliative care education, mentorship and leadership in acute, community and long term care.
Chelsea Peddle
Getting Comfortable with Death: A Checklist for Personal Care and Comfort Wishes
When her mum Merry, was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor in spring 2019, Chelsea Peddle had the achingly bitter-sweet experience of being death doula for her own beloved. Merry’s end-of-life journey was marked by celebrations and laughter, quiet reflection and connection, and a deep presence with life, until her medically assisted death three months after diagnosis.
In this workshop, Chelsea will share her Comfort Care Checklist, a planning tool to bring physical, emotional and spiritual peace to our final months and moments, illuminated by real learnings from the path she walked with her mum. Participants will explore the role of ritual, complementary therapies and practical tips to hearten unfamiliar care settings. Through storytelling, visualization, personal reflection and discussion, we will discover how making a Comfort Care Plan can help us die with mindfulness and grieve with intention.
MORE ABOUT CHELSEA
Chelsea Peddle is an end-of-life planner, death doula and the founder of CircleSpace: Empowered End-of-Life Planning in Victoria, BC, where she helps people prepare for end-of-life so they can live in peace. Through workshops, coaching and companionship, Chelsea offers emotional, physical, spiritual and pragmatic support for individuals and their families before, during and after death. Her passion is helping people find peace of mind and peace of heart in a time of great stress. Chelsea has an End-of-Life Doula certificate from Douglas College and is a member of the End-of-Life Doula Association of Canada. www.circlespace.ca
Lycia Rodrigues
Caring for the Caregiver
2019 SESSIONS
Penny Allport
End of Life Ritual and Ceremony – Bringing Death Home
Through presence, personal experience and storytelling, Penny will open a ceremonial space, in the spirit of inquiry with nature and her elemental beings, into myths and methods for co-creating ceremony at end of life.
How may respect and value for ceremony support digestion and integration of our experiences at end of life? Are ceremony and ritual bio-needs of all fleshy creatures beyond spiritual beliefs, practices and cultural rituals? What are key elements that support slowing down and holding space for ritual to unfold in authentic and emergent ways? Are we ceremony catchers?
How might perceiving death as a personal, familial and communal event grow relational capacities beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing? How do soulful and integral approaches to end of life include and honor the earth and ecological footprint of death?
Your participation, curiosity and spirit of inquiry will contribute to this playful, lively and stirring session!
MORE ABOUT PENNY
Penny Allport is a Certified Life-Cycle Celebrant (Weddings & Funerals) with the Celebrant Foundation & Institute, and a certified Insight Funeral Celebrant. She is a long time lover and explorer of the world’s great wisdom traditions and has been facilitating soulful, somatic and inquiry based circles for over twenty-five years, in Canada, US, Bali and Mexico.
Her recent collaboration with Living Well – Dying Well with The Centre for Earth & Spirit has inspired an experiential and inspiring program tending End of Life from the practical to the profound, deepening inquiry into the experience of death and dying in modern times.
As a Metaphysical bookstore owner from the age of 28, a steward of a small retreat center (Paradise Found) on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia, and into her current landing in Victoria, BC, as a Home Funeral Guide, End of Life Educator and Facilitator, Penny welcomes opportunities and invitations to sit on the threshold of what is not yet known, collaborating with humans, Nature and the Mystery.
Bringing Death Home is her deepest call at this time, recovering and discovering all the ways we can walk with death as a friend and ally in these tumultuous and tender times, through courageous conversations and the reclamation of ceremony and ritual.
Dr. Rosanne Beuthin – Keynote Speaker
Cultivating Our Best Death : Respecting Choice
Dr. Rosanne Beuthin, RN, PhD completed her post graduate nursing at the University of Victoria and is an Adjunct Professor. She works as a nurse consultant for Island Health and has been the coordinator for the Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) Program since 2016. She has been involved with research into advanced illness since 2009, and has focused on metaphor, spirituality and death and dying.
Rosanne’s goal has been and continues to be, inspiring relational practice and ethical care. Her practice reflects a heartfelt conviction that we are the other and are all connected. She is an advocate for patient choice and believes it is crucial that we invite, honour, and lean into patient stories; that we hear and accept each individual’s unique lived experience without judgement.
Chris Benesch
Green Burials and Cremation – Everything You Always Wanted to Ask About Death but Were Afraid to Ask
This session will focus on what is green burial and where can it be done? The session will provide information and will also allow time for answering questions specific to the needs of the participants.
READ ABOUT CHRIS HERE
Chris Benesch is the second of three generations of his family in funeral service. He trained under his father’s license in Barrhead, Alberta in 1986 and has been a licensed funeral director and embalmer for over 30 years. He and his family now run a successful business, Earth’s Option, specializing in green burial and client-centered funeral planning.
Chris is currently a member of the British Institute of Embalmers and has held various leadership positions with Provincial regulatory bodies and Funeral Associations in both Alberta and British Columbia.
Linda Hunter
That Which Lasts – Leaving Our Legacy
It comes to us all; the end. And while we may not be able to control the when and how, what we do have agency over is our legacy; the memories we want shared, the lessons we want learned, the stories we want told.
Join Linda Hunter as she shares inspiration and insights from those who have designed their legacy around what matters most and what lasts – the lessons, the wisdom, the love.
Learn what it is to create a Legacy Letter /Ethical Will, to design your own Farewell Event, and to learn how to tell your life’s story your way; writing your own Obituary and Eulogy. We may not all be writers, but we all have a story to share.
This is about the heart work of dying – about what lives on, long after we have lived.
“We’re all just walking each other home” – Ram Dass
READ ABOUT LINDA HERE
Linda Hunter has spent more than 35 joy filled years as an independent writer, published author, and professional event planner. Dedicated to service and open to possibility, she aspires to walk a path of grace. Linda’s passion for life includes a passion for death. She spends time volunteering in a local hospital Palliative Care Unit, is a member of the Victoria Holistic Death Care Community, is the co-visionary behind Deathly Matters, and is grateful to have supported her elders through end of life.
Linda believes that the final gift we can give someone is to honour their time on earth, to celebrate the life they lived, and to cherish the memory that they leave behind. At Dying With Grace, she provides event planning and writing services to create a memorable farewell that represents that life’s journey.
“We’re all just walking each other home” – Ram Dass
Shauna Janz
Joining our Ancestors
How can we support our loved ones to successfully complete the rite of passage that is dying and becoming an ancestor?
By coming into conscious and direct relationship with our deeply well ancestors, we can contribute to the journey of those in our family who have died to receive the guidance they need to transition into the realm of ancestors.
Join Shauna Janz for an inclusive and heart-centered talk on ancestral lineage connection, ritually safe strategies for helping deceased family members, and the role of grief in becoming an ancestor. Attendees will also be guided through an experiential visioning time to call in the support of their ancient loving ancestors.
This approach is compatible with diverse cultural and religious belief systems. We all have ancestors, and we all have the inate ability to connect with them. Welcome everyone, whether you are seasoned in connection with the unseen realm, or new to this type of relational healing and support.
READ ABOUT SHAUNA HERE
Shauna is dedicated to tending belonging in our world, within ourselves, with each other, and with our other-than-human relations. She creates space for reaching into the rough and beautiful places that are a catalyst for transformation and healing, personally and collectively.
She companions others through grief, and guides others into wholeness through ancestral re-connection. Her approach is trauma-informed and grounded in embodied presence, somatic awareness, and animism as sources of wisdom and resiliency.
Shauna leads a practice offering individual, family and community grief support and ritual, ancestral lineage healing, training, and mentorship. She is a teacher with Ancestral Medicine, founded by Daniel Foor, PhD; a trainer with BC Bereavement Helpline providing traumatic loss support; and the education director with Learning Through Loss supporting youth through grief. She is founder of the Victoria Holistic Death Care Community, and co-visionary for the annual Deathly Matters conference.
Jennifer Mallmes
The Role of Death Doulas
Jennifer has spent the last 20 years as a care giver to persons at the end of life, beginning of life and the in between. Jennifer is a registered Community Health Worker, a birth doula and a practicing end of life care doula. She received her Bachelor of General Studies in Sociology/Gerontology from SFU in 2009. She developed the End of Life Doula curriculum in partnership with Douglas College and is a Director of the End of Life Care Association of Canada.
Jennifer’s passion for quality end of life care inspired her to share her experience and empower others to fully live out their life. She is a mother of 5 and resides in the lower mainland of BC.
Ashley Mollison
Promoting Health Equity at End of Life
People who experience homelessness and unstable housing, poverty, racialization, and exclusion, face barriers to quality care at end-of-life. For these populations, death and dying sometimes occurs in specialized palliative care settings but the majority of people die in acute care and alone. Alternatively, they spend their final days in shelters or supportive housing cared for by workers who are highly compassionate, but have limited training and support to ensure high quality palliative care.
In this session, attendees will learn about:
1) Findings from local research (PI Dr. Kelli Stajduhar) exploring the end-of-life experiences of marginalized people in our community, and
2) Initiatives underway to cultivate a broader community response to improve how death and dying happens in the inner city community.
READ ABOUT ASHLEY HERE
Ashley Mollison is a research coordinator for various studies promoting health equity in palliative care (PI, Dr. Kelli Stajduhar) and is the co-author of a recently released report, “Too Little, Too Late: How We Fail Vulnerable Canadians as They Die and What to Do About It”.
While new to palliative care, Ashley has over 10 years’ experience working in community settings with grassroots organizations advancing the health and political power of people who are living in poverty and homeless.
Don Morris
Home Funerals and Body Care – What, Why and How
This session explains via power point, video, and discussion, what this grass roots fuelled, legal funeral option is all about and why it has arisen. It demonstrates (with a live model), basic physical care. The session ends with participants placing the model into a simple casket. This will be an enlightening and positively stimulating session.
READ MORE ABOUT DON HERE
Don Morris, M.Ed. is co-founder and director of the Home Funeral Practicum, a national 2 day intensive training in home death care.
After a successful career as a funeral director and cemeterian spanning the 70’s and 80’s, Don retrained as a therapeutic counsellor. In 2010, prompted by a concern for the environment and its nexus with wasteful/harmful funeral industry practices, he brought the Green Burial Council to Canada. A lifelong interest in death and dying led to consulting to the Canadian Integrative Network for Death Education and Alternatives. In 2012, after realizing the need for public death conversations, he and his wife Elizabeth opened Canada’s first Death Cafe.
Glenn Patterson
Multi-faith & Multi-cultural Perspectives on Death and Dying
A First Nation’s Perspective on Death and Dying
Glenn Patterson, AOCA, MEd is an artist, drum-maker, singer, storyteller, educator and filmaker. He believes that the drum as your ‘centre’, your connection to the earth, can become an empowering tool to self-awareness and realization.
Glenn also facilitates ceremonies and a men’s warrior program (Awakening the Warrior Within) and served as the institutional elder at the Matsqui prison from 2009-2014, assisting inmates through one-one-one counselling and cultural ceremony.
Chelsea Peddle
Getting Comfortable with Death – A Checklist for End-Of-Life Personal Care
For many people, suffering at end-of-life is one of their greatest fears. We know that advance care planning* makes individuals “more likely to die at peace and in control of their situation, and to spare their family anguish” (Atul Gwande, 2008). But what else can be done to improve quality end-of-life at end-of-life? Pre-planning your personal care and comfort wishes is an important part of advance care planning. It’s also a unique way to ease end-of-life fears and prepare for a good death.
This workshop guides participants to envision their final days and asks, “what would bring comfort, peace and even joy to your final moments?” Grounded in the 4 aspects of self (physical, emotional, spiritual and relationship), you’ll learn about personal care and comfort options like massage and sound therapy; envision the ideal setting for your death and learn tips for creating a comfort plan that reflects the uniqueness of “you”. This workshop includes guided meditation, collaborative dialogue and time to reflect on and record your personal care wishes using a holistic personal care and comfort checklist.
*Advance Care Planning is the process of exploring and deciding on the type of medical care you would or would not want if you became incapable of making decisions for yourself.
READ ABOUT CHELSEA HERE
Chelsea Peddle is the owner and lead consultant with CircleSpace: Empowered End-of-life Planning. Chelsea draws on her experience in health policy and education, and her training as an end-of-life doula to support individuals, families, businesses and communities.
Her goal is to transform how we prepare for death so we can live more fully, now. She empathically engages people to reflect on their values and beliefs, and to navigate information, healthcare and legal systems to make informed decisions about their end-of-life.
Sachi Tamura
Multi-faith & Multi-cultural Perspectives on Death and Dying
A Buddhist Perspective on Death and Dying – Living Meaningfully, Dying Joyfully
Why do Buddhists meditate on death? A Buddhist perspective of death opens our heart to the deepest and most meaningful experiences of life. Our life is precious because it gives us the opportunity to engage in a spiritual path— one that creates mental peace no matter what our external circumstances may be. By expanding our understanding of what happens when we die, we become more mindful of our actions in daily life. Cultivating kindness, love, compassion and wisdom allows us to approach death with a peaceful mind. In his book, Living Meaningfully, Dying Joyfully Geshe Kelsang Gyatso writes that “preparing for death is the kindest and wisest thing we can do for both ourself and others”. Seeing our life as a dream, we can effectively prepare for death and the process of awakening.
READ ABOUT SACHI HERE
Sachi Tamura is a teacher and practitioner at the Bodhichitta Kadampa Buddhist Centre in Victoria. She believes that our state of mind and the power of what we believe is very important as we near the end of our life. Compassion and wisdom become increasingly significant. Contemplation and meditations on death and impermanence can bring great meaning and understanding to our experience.
In 2016 Sachi completed the “Beyond Hospice” training program for Death Midwives and Home Funeral Guides. She now maintains a practice to support family and friends at the end of life, in whatever way is most meaningful for that person.
Sachi’s first decades of work were in the field of Augmentative Communication where she taught, developed curricula, trained teachers, and consulted to programs for people who are not able to speak.
The statement that guides her practice and work is from the book “Living Meaningfully, Dying Joyfully” by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso … “Preparing for death is one of the kindest and wisest things we can do for both our-self and others.”
