2020 MAIN SPEAKING SESSIONS
Arran Liddel, Oceanna Hall, Shauna Janz, and Andrew Langford – Keynote Panel
Mourning Stories – An Exploration of Grief, Sorrow and Bereavement
In this morning’s opening Keynote conversation, we invite you to join our panel to explore a diversity of perspectives on the crossroads that is Grief, Sorrow and Bereavement.
Join in community as together, we dip into a more nuanced understanding and ask ourselves and each other:
How do we both honour and shed light on the individual uniqueness of grief experiences?
What can we do to dispel some of the limiting beliefs around Grief? What do we need to know in order to show up well for ourselves and for each other? What do we need to have and take with us in order to inform and better approach our own relationship to grief and mourning.
MORE ABOUT ARRAN, OCEANNA, SHAUNA, and ANDREW
Arran Liddel is the Director of Spiritual Exploration and Learning for Children and Youth at First Unitarian Church of Victoria and is a Unitarian Universalist Ministerial Candidate. His work has focused on building community as well as training and facilitation on issues relating to healthy relationships, sexuality, conflict-resolution, and restorative justice/practices. He has experience working with LGBTQ communities, racialized and immigrant communities, people living with HIV, seniors, and people with disabilities in a variety of capacities. Arran is also a licensed officiant and has lead over 250 ceremonies in Toronto and Victoria and is studying towards a Masters of Divinity, focusing on earth-based spiritualities, at Cherry Hill Seminary. He is currently doing a spiritual health practicum at Victoria Hospice, where he has been a volunteer. https://victoriaunitarian.ca
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. https://www.islandhealth.ca/our-locations/spiritual-health-locations/spiritual-care-saanich-peninsula-hospital
Shauna Janz MA offers emotional, spiritual and educational guidance at the crossroad of grief, trauma, and ancestral healing. She specializes in supporting folks reclaim their relationship to grieving as a personal and ancestral skill, and as an avenue towards cultural healing. Through her business Sacred Grief, she provides mentorship and training programs, working both locally and internationally. Audiences have included Vancouver Island non-profit organizations, local and provincial government, First Nation communities, post-secondary institutions, school district teams, small rural communities and international education forums, such as Spiritual Directors International and The Shift Network. Shauna is currently a trainer with the BC Bereavement Helpline, and the former Executive Director of Learning Through Loss supporting youth with grief education and loss support groups. . 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 co-hosts Obstacle Course Podcast, a popular bi-weekly conversation about adversity, challenge and mindset.
He’ll bring his integrity, expertise, and facilitation skills to our Deathly Matters Keynote Panel in May 2020. www.obstaclecoursepodcast.com
Pashta MaryMoon
By My Own Heart and Hand – Home Funerals and “Last Wishes”
The By My Own Heart and Hand Session will focus on the process of a home funeral (i.e. caring for our own dead at home) as well as the emotional/spiritual, ecological, and financial advantages of doing so. Although home funerals themselves happen immediately after death, we will also consider Death and Directives and “last wishes” covering:
- how to make choices about final stages of dying (where/when/how),
- the issues around ‘coming home for a home funeral’ (i.e. from residential care, hospital, hospice etc.) given that many people no longer have a family home,
- options for choosing elements for ceremonies that may happen pre-death (example, a ‘living celebration of life’), during a home funeral, and the more common funeral and memories services.
This session will focus on information and participants will be welcome to participate in interactive exercises and share stories of their own experiences. Handouts will be provided on the basic subjects covered and information on CINDEA.
MORE ABOUT PASHTA
Pashta MaryMoon is a pan-death practitioner 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.
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.
MORE ABOUT SHAUNA
Shauna Janz MA offers emotional, spiritual and educational guidance at the crossroad of grief, trauma, and ancestral healing. She specializes in supporting folks reclaim their relationship to grieving as a personal and ancestral skill, and as an avenue towards cultural healing.
Through her business Sacred Grief, she provides mentorship and training programs, working both locally and internationally. Audiences have included Vancouver Island non-profit organizations, local and provincial government, First Nation communities, post-secondary institutions, school district teams, small rural communities and international education forums, such as Spiritual Directors International and The Shift Network.
Shauna is currently a trainer with the BC Bereavement Helpline, and the former Executive Director of Learning Through Loss supporting youth with grief education and loss support groups.
Dr. Rosanne Beuthin, Oceanna Hall, Mona Mork
MAiD – Understanding and Navigating Medical Assistance in Dying
In this session, attendees will gain an understanding of MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) and where we are in Canada, after almost four years (MAiD became legal in Canada on June 6th, 2016). Rosanne is a nurse consultant for Island Health and the coordinator for the MAiD program since 2016.
Attendees will also have an opportunity to have questions answered in this session.
MORE ABOUT ROSANNE, OCEANNA, MONA
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 is a clinical specialist and 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. She facilitates a Bereavement group for MAiD, supporting those left behind by loved ones who chose MAiD.
Mona Mork of Adieu Dying Support Services has been involved in supporting Oceanna in the MAiD Bereavement Group along with others in her private practice. Mona looks at the additional layers of grief that MAiD can add, regardless of one’s spiritual beliefs and the dynamics that creates. She shares a personal account from both sides of the experience.
https://www.islandhealth.ca/learn-about-health/medical-assistance-dying/medical-assistance-dying
https://www.islandhealth.ca/our-locations/spiritual-health-locations/spiritual-care-saanich-peninsula-hospital
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.
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.
Penny Allport
The Ecological Footprint of Death – Your Living Legacy
How has the care of death changed during the last century? What is the impact of this on the earth now? Where are we in terms of tending to the ecological footprint of death and its impact on the future, given the reality of a growing climate crisis? What innovations and creative options are currently available and on the foreseeable horizon?
What we choose for our body’s care in death is our final statement of care for ourselves, family, the earth and generations to come! Join us to discover, share and engage in this lively conversation.
MORE ABOUT PENNY
Penny Allport is a Life-Cycle Celebrant (Weddings & Funerals) certified with both Celebrant Foundation & Institute and InSight Funeral Institute. As a Home Funeral Guide & End of Life Educator based in Victoria, Penny offers private, family, and group facilitation in tending end-of-life with consciousness and care.
In collaboration with The Centre for Earth & Spirit, Penny is an advisor for and facilitator of Living Well-Dying Well, an experiential and inspiring program tending End of Life from the practical to the profound, deeping enquiry into the experience of death and dying in modern times.
A long time lover and explorer of the world’s great wisdom traditions, a Yoga & Continuum Instructor, Penny has been facilitating soulful, somatic, and inquiry based gatherings for over twenty-five years, in Canada, US, Bali and Mexico, in partnership with nature, Mystery and humans too!
Penny inspires the reclamation of ceremony and ritual in our times, empowering others in Bringing Death Home – recovering and discovering all the ways we can walk with death as a friend and ally in these tumultuous and tender times. Her deep care for the ecological impact of death in this time of global climate crisis inspires this offering – with gratitude to be included in Deathly Matters 2020.
Lycia M. Rodrigues
What We Can Learn From the Stories of Family and Friend Caregivers – Supporting a Palliative Approach to Carer the Caregiver
MORE ABOUT LYCIA
Lycia M. Rodrigues works for Family Caregivers of BC answering a caregiver call support line that is a free available resource for unpaid family and friend caregivers across the province. Over a decade ago, she began her professional career as a psychologist in Brazil) within a public health programming context for adults who were dealing with chronic disease, which also involved facilitating health management educational workshops. She has a Masters degree in Social Dimensions of Health from the University of Victoria with a focus on Gerontology. Improving the quality of life for caregivers and older adults has been a significant part of Lycia’s vocational calling. Fueling her work is her hope that families will feel compassionately supported and will know what resources are available to them during the health challenges they are encountering together.
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.
Glen Patterson and Michelle Staples
A First Nation’s Perspective on Death, Dying, and Grief
MORE ABOUT GLENN and MICHELLE
Glenn T Patterson, MA Ed, is an artist and an educator and and has a mixed heritage of both Mowhawk and Irish. He has Created and facilitated Drum, Rattle and Shield-Making workshops by leading participants through a personal process to a deeper understanding of themselves.
Taught in various settings, First Nations’ organizations, universities and public sessions. Authored, developed, and delivered a course curriculum for Design for Television and Film at Emily Carr College of Art & Design for third year Graphic Design students (2 semesters) as well as the BC Mentored numerous practicum Co-op students from Kwantlen, BCIT and Emily Carr College of Art and Design.
Michelle Staples is a long-term Cowichan Valley (Vancouver Island) resident, a mother and self employed entrepreneur with a long history of bringing people together on projects that are important to the Cowichan Valley. She has deep respect for the First Peoples of this land and is honoured to live on Coast Salish territory.
Michele Jarvis Wonnacott
Pet Loss- Grieving Gracefully
What I have come to learn is that animals come into our lives to teach us the lessons that we need to learn and all we have to do is to learn how to listen.
What I know to be true is that in this time in our lives together, it is time to find grace, ceremony and gratitude in the passing journey of our beloved sentient soul friends.
In the passing journey lies a wealth of personal information, deep connection, healing beyond what we could ever imagine and this grace that you will only find through this journey and beyond.
What I want to share with you is the information that pets have shared with me before, during and after their passing journey.
MORE ABOUT MICHELE
Michele Jarvis Wonnacott attended hundreds of courses and classes in order to strengthen this strange yet honorable ability and to also learn that she’s not all that crazy.
Michele has been working with dogs’ under the title of Dog Trainer since the year of 2002 and madly in love with every single moment of it. The only time she does not love it is when the dog gives me information that the human does not follow through with. She feels sad for the dog that the human cannot learn the lesson that is right directly in front of them. It’s a bit heartbreaking to her to this very day.
She has to trust that this is the person and the dogs’ very own personal journey and her job is simply to be the interpreter not the judge. She truly believes without a doubt that the information that a dog brings forth is the reason that they exist in your lives. This is what she personally knows to be true, as the 7000 dogs that she has worked with have made this very, very clear.
She asks you to trust that you are in good, caring honest, loving, hands and its her pure intention to help the lines of communication between you and your dog be as clear as they can be at this time in your relationship together.
Over the years of communicating with animals all over the world and receiving positive reports back from the human companions, she has been driven to shift her very busy highly in demand, full time dog training job, to working with you and your dogs through this new medium.
Rami Shami
The Intersection of Trauma Informed Care and Cultural Humility within Death Care
MORE ABOUT RAMI
Rami Shami has been serving in Hospice Palliative Care for nearly three decades. He feels privileged to have served with a multitude of Hospices and currently applies his skill and experience as a Consultant as well as Case
Manager for the Second Mile Club at Kensington Health, and Multicultural Outreach Coordinator for Lighthouse for Grieving Children. While harvesting a conviction that everyone should have access to quality Hospice
Palliative Care, Rami strongly advocates and intimately supports the development and growth of programs and services for those travelling the journey of a life-limiting illness, their caregivers, and those who are bereaved.