National Death Doula Day, April 20, 2022

Written by my dear aunt Polly Krieger, who died of congestive heart failure over a decade ago

“Death Doula day was created to raise awareness about the profession of Death Doulas and how they can benefit patients and families at the end of life. Death Doulas provide the additional support that families need in order to feel comfortable with taking care of their dying loved one at home. They are non-medical professionals that provide holistic support for the dying and their loved ones before, during, and after death. Trained in the various end of life stages, a Doulagiver is able to assist the family with understanding the natural processes of death while providing comfort and support through these processes. This is the day where all Death Doulas can rise together and be a voice for social change for end of life care – ensuring everyone has the most positive passing possible“

Above excerpt from an mail from Suzanne O’Brien of Doulagivers International on National Death Doula Day, April 20th, 2022

The need for death doulas who support the dying, their family and friends before, during and after death has been growing for years and crescendoed during the pandemic. Some people sign up for death doula training for their own personal growth and learning; sometimes because they sense a deep calling to this work. Either way, the need for caregivers who understand dying is growing rapidly as baby-boomers age.

I trained with Doulagivers (Suzanne O’Brien) at the end of 2021 and beginning of 2022 and became a Hospice Volunteer to fully enable my certification. I found both the training and the required volunteer work rewarding. We learned about the social/emotional, practical, medical, historical and structural areas where specific death doula competencies can help fill the gaps in support. We covered diverse topics in great depth including patient safety, grieving (anticipatory and post-death), advance care planning, advance directives, forgiveness, family conflict, medical advocacy, top 10 specific diseases leading to death, working with hospice, alleviating end-of-life pain and complications, creating a calm and peaceful environment that meets the patient’s wishes, post death care and arrangements, home-wakes and rituals, eco-burials, as well as how to reach communities that might not know about these services (or be able to afford them).

If a mini one-evening free introductory course to end-of-life processes and considerations could alleviate some of the stresses that go along with end-of-life, would you take it? Accepting death as an inevitable part of life means being open to learning and ready when the need is there. You don’t have to want to be a certified doula to learn the fundamentals!

If you want to learn about the death doula movement, you can listen to Suzanne’s new recording at the bottom of this post.

And I highly recommend her free, longer Doulagivers Level 1 Training offered tonight – April 20th, 2022 – at 7pm ET in honor of National Death Doula Day!

Register here: https://my.demio.com/ref/ylAkhGaAsQbP… She speaks for an hour but will stay on for up to 2 hours more to answer every single question that comes in via the chat. This is very valuable opportunity to get your specific questions answered.

Lastly and because I care so much about helpful and supportive grieving, I want to share a link to a wonderful service called grief.coach. Often after a person dies, the initial friend and family support fades away because friends and family are not sure how to support the one most affected by the loss. People return to their routines and life goes back to normal, but only at the surface. Grief.coach is a unique service for grievers and up to four core support people selected by the griever. It is available for a full year after the loss of a loved one and can be renewed at a further discount and continued into the second year and beyond. All five people will get unique, highly context specific encouragement and tips via text message, curated by specialists in grieving. The messages are provided in over 10 foreign languages. Additionally the content and frequency of messages are tailored to date, the cause of death ( Accident, Cancer, Cardiovascular Disease, COVID-19, Drug & Alcohol Related Death, Homicide, Natural Causes, Other Illness, Stillbirth, Stroke and Suicide), religion, identity (BIPOC, LGBTQ) and any holidays, anniversaries specific to your situation. The supporters and the griever will get different messages.

I will soon have my own affiliate link to enable you to subscribe at a $10 off discount. Please contact me at andreachiou2010@gmail.com if you would like the affiliate link, once it is ready. It will allow you a $10 discount off the 1 year subscription of $100. Corporate level subscriptions are available for companies that want to support grieving employees as well.

Thank you for following me and don’t forget to live your every day to the fullest!

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