training health and social care professionals to help families with funerals

Our introductory two-day workshop, Funerals Explained, has been described by participants as practical, informative, sensitive, transforming, empowering, warm, inspiring, moving. We also offer a one-day workshop, which covers similar ground in less depth.

Run in beautiful surroundings amid Devon countryside and woodland, our workshops not only give you the information you need but enable you to reconnect to your feelings about loss and the experience of being part of a bereaved family. We provide fresh, home-cooked food, time for discussion and a supportive, intimate environment to make this an excellent learning experience. With small numbers of participants, the material is conveyed through drama, role play, stories and pictures as well as more conventionally. The two-day workshop includes a fascinating visit to a crematorium or a woodland burial site. Making the journey to Devon can be seen as part of the course and those who do find it easier than expected and worthwhile.

Part 1 Funerals Explained (one or two days)
Learning Outcomes:
1. Gain an understanding of liminal bereavement and your role in helping a family cope with loss and arrange a funeral.

2. Know the main choices with regard to planning and arranging a funeral, including

  • what to do when someone dies
  • cremation (learn how a crematorium works by visiting it)
  • green and woodland burial and how these sites are set up
  • selecting a funeral director
  • how family members can be involved
  • types of coffins, urns and shrouds
  • caring for the body at home
  • a guide to how much everything costs
  • paying for a funeral, including the Social Fund
  • a personal, authentic ceremony.

3. Explore ways to talk about funerals with patients and their families.

4. Understand the questions a family can ask a funeral director to help them make the right choice.

5. Support to explore your own feelings and attitudes towards death and funerals.

6. What makes a good funeral - structure and content

These learning outcomes will enable you to talk to a family about their main choices with knowledge and confidence.
You can add to the depth of your knowledge and skills in this area by joining additional two-day, in-depth training programmes for those who wish to make funeral advice a larger part of their work, perhaps part of their job description.

Parts 2 and 3 are open to those who have completed the two-day version of part 1.

Part 2. Arranging A Funeral (two days) - on completion of the first two parts of the programme you will be able to inform and support someone on the practicalities of what to do when someone dies, how to get quotes from funeral directors for specific tasks, how much everything costs and, through role play, have more experience of helping a family to think about and make their main choices with regard to caring for the body, choice of burial site, a venue for the ceremony and different coffins, urns and shrouds. You will also know the basics of what makes a good funeral and how the family can participate. Throughout the programme you will build self-awareness of your own attitudes and emotions with regard to death.

Part 3. Funeral Adviser Certificate (two days) - on completion of the whole programme, in addition to what you have achieved in the first four days, you will have learned more skills to work sensitively and empathically with the dying and newly bereaved and be able to inform, support and advise them on all aspects of arranging a funeral and dealing with the forms and paperwork, to the extent that if the family wish and are well-resourced they can do everything themselves guided by you. You will have learned about some of the less familiar options, for example burials on private land.