Going with Grace End of Life Education and Planning

“I work in Hospice and this information was great to hear from five woman of color. This course should be taken by all Hospice workers. Thank you so much.”

Terrie

“Outstanding communal effort to share knowledge and wisdom! These five wisdom keepers (Alua Arthur, Oceana Sawyer, Lashanna Williams, Joe'l Simone Anthony, Alica Forneret) came together in our time of collective need and brought forth an outpouring of knowledge and wisdom forged in the fires of their personal experience. I feel so honored to be a recipient of the love and respect with which they shared these teachings. I gained important tools of self-reflection and new perspectives that I will take with me into the birthing of my own service, as a guest, to the dying, the dead, and those in grief. Thank you, thank you Beautiful Women!”

Elizabeth

“I had the privilege and pleasure of learning from Alua Arthur, Oceana Sawyer, Lashanna Williams, Joe’l Simone Anthony, and Alicia Forneret in this course. I learned so much about implicit bias across all aspects of death care and learned how to identify the way my own privilege has impacted the care I provide. This course is a well-crafted starting point for me to continue doing the work of decolonizing how I approach how I speak and how I listen in my work and at home.”

Anna

“Multidimensional training with much to offer! I trained as a death doula (although I've never practiced), several years ago, and found a lack of conversation about structural racism in end of life care, and in deaths themselves, in death care spaces particularly unnerving. I was so excited to see that Going with Grace was offering "Shifting Deathcare: Tools for a New Paradigm," because I recognize how pervasive anti-Blackness is in impacting how Black Americans die and the kind of care they experience and feel they can advocate for while dying. I loved learning about the radicalization of a "good death" (i.e. its continued inaccessibility to many), the importance of language for nonjudgmental support, disenfranchised grief and histories/practices of homegoing rituals in black communities, and how to provide informed and prepared grief support. As a Black doula (birth/perinatal bereavement/abortion) without a lot of experience in end of life care that primarily supports adults at the end of their lives and their families, I learned a lot and am eager to learn more! ”

Kelsey

“Learning about the importance of funeralization and how (as a funeral professional myself) to approach BIPOC grief and funeral arrangements as a guest is a highly valuable lesson. I was grateful for the history of homegoings, how that history connects to modern tradition, and the insight that current events affect how BIPOC experience not just life but death/loss, too, and that it can inform perception and feeling even if the family you're working with didn't necessarily experience a traumatic/violent death. I also appreciated looking at embalming/restorative art with the removal of a privileged view. It was a nice reminder that these things can be powerful and healing tools. Thank you Joél! ”

Morgan

“I am so glad I took this course, It was really an eye opening for me. Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.”

Lia