NHFA on YouTube

Webinars recorded a year or more ago are made available for free on the NHFA YouTube channel. ​

Empowering Children in Home Funerals with Kailey Bradley

Monday, December 4th at 8pm ET | 5pm PT

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Kailey Bradley
Join us on Monday, December 4th at 8pm ET | 5pm PT for Empowering Children in Home Funerals with Kailey Bradley, MA, LPCC-S, NCC, FT!
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Children are often neglected from conversations surrounding illness, death, and bereavement. In this training, practical tools will be provided that invite, include, and empower children to be apart of home funerals, the dying process, and the grief process.  Creative and compassionate interventions will be provided that center on the role children can play in honoring their loved ones.   

Kailey has a background in hospice work and feels that companioning and advocating for grievers is her life’s passion. She is a licensed professional counselor, nationally certified counselor, and Fellow in Thanatology. Currently, Kailey is an adjunct professor at Ashland Theological seminary where she teaches grief counseling courses and Marian University where she teaches courses on Childhood Bereavement and Pediatric Hospice Care.  Kailey is also currently a doctoral student at Ohio University and co-owns Refuge Counseling, LLC a private practice specializing in the intersections of grief, sexuality, chronic illness and spirituality.  
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Register to attend this event live, or receive the recording made available afterward (within two weeks of the event) to all registrants. There is a sliding scale to attend, starting at $10.

Funeral/Cemetery Fraud Reporting Training for Deathcare Professionals
Wednesday, November 29 at 8pm ET | 5pm PT

Have you or anyone you know been the victim of funeral or cemetery fraud? As home funeral guides or funeral consumer advocates, perhaps people come to you with complaints about funeral homes in your area and you're not always sure where to direct them. 

In the past few years we have heard complaints of funeral homes fraudulently selling services they don't provide (the most recent high-profile example being the Return to Nature funeral home in Colorado), refusing to return ashes of deceased family members, or selling plots that don't exist. While these are thankfully rare cases, they do happen, and as advocates for your clients or community, you should know what to do when these complaints come up. 

It turns out that violations of The Funeral Rule, as well as any other fraud complaints can be directed to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) via their Sentinel platform. The filing process is actually quick and easy! In partnership with the FTC and the Funeral Consumers' Alliance (FCA), are hosting a virtual training on November 29 at 5pm PT/8pm ET, where we will teach you how to make a Sentinel report so that you can file these complaints with the FTC yourself or help others to do it. 

Secular Ceremonies, Universal Rituals, & Home Funerals with Megan Sheldon

Tuesday, November 21st at 8pm ET | 5pm PT

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Megan Sheldon
Receive a recording from our webinar on Tuesday, November 21st at 8pm ET | 5pm PT for Secular Ceremonies, Universal Rituals, & Home Funerals with Megan Sheldon, the co-founder of Be Ceremonial!
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In this webinar, we will explore what makes a ritual meaningful and how we can structure a ceremony that helps us move through a time of transition or moment of change. With a focus on end-of-life experiences, we will share ritual ideas for living funerals, sitting vigil, home funerals, celebrations of life and death anniversaries. We will also discuss the role of ritual in our own self-care, including how we acknowledge the grief we carry and the other emotions that can often surround death and dying. You will leave feeling more confident to create your own rituals and ceremonies, for yourself and for others.

Megan Sheldon is the co-founder of Be Ceremonial, a guided ritual app that empowers you to create your own daily rituals and lifecycle ceremonies. Megan is also a cultural mythologist, humanist celebrant, and end-of-life doula in North Vancouver, BC. 

Megan designed this app with her husband Johan after their own experiences of loss. They were searching for secular rituals to support their grief journey and decided to share all of the knowledge and wisdom they've gathered over the past decade. Be Ceremonial focuses on rituals and ceremonies that surround grief, loss and the end-of-life, including home funerals.

Register to receive the recording for a sliding scale donation, starting at $10.

End of Life Care: Through The Eyes of Hospice and End of Life Doulas with Adrian Allotey

Wednesday, October 18 at 8pm ET | 5pm PT

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Adrian Allotey
In this webinar, Adrian Allotey will reflect on end-of-life care from the perspective of hospice and EOL doulas, using her client Susan’s story as a framework. Adrian is an End-of-Life Doula and Owner of You Are Not Alone Elder Care, LLC in Colonia, New Jersey. Adrian specializes in elder and end of life care, support, companionship, and education. Adrian writes:

“I made it my life’s mission to promote the final years as a sacred, beautiful, honorable stage of life. I became a hospice volunteer and a certified end-of-life doula, a person who assists in the dying process, much like a birth doula does with the birthing process. Working with elderly patients has been life affirming so much so that I left a career of 20+ years.

Along with my team, we serve as non-medical elderly companions who specialize in physical, emotional and spiritual care. We meet our clients on their terms, see them as whole, and build relationships with them and their loved ones. Our self-care regimen, personal growth and intuition allow us to mindfully hold space and provide comfort for elderly people and their family in a non-judgmental, loving manner. Our motto ‘heart to your heart’ is evident in the holistic elder companionship we provide.”

Register to receive a recording from this 90-minute event for a sliding scale donation (starting at $10).

Backyard Burial with Elizabeth Fournier

Wednesday, September 27 at 8pm ET | 5pm PT

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Elizabeth Fournier
In this webinar, green burial advocate Elizabeth Fournier will talk about backyard burial in the United States. A backyard burial includes burying a person on residential property, or land that is privately owned. Most bodies are buried in established, endorsed cemeteries, but burial on private property may be possible. Laws vary not only state to state but county to county in the US; it’s most accepted and typical in rural settings.

If you are considering a backyard burial, think carefully about what it may mean for the property itself and the person who owns it (which may be yourself). All other issues aside, burying someone on private land impacts the future sale of that property. In addition, however remote the concern may be, you should consider how you’d feel, and what you would do, if your deceased loved one resided on property that you no longer owned.

Elizabeth Fournier began her career in 1990 in Portland, OR, where she was employed as the live-in night keeper, sleeping in a trailer in a Portland cemetery. Thirty-three years later, she is a one-woman funeral service in the rural town of Boring, Oregon. Elizabeth owns and operates Cornerstone Funeral Services where she is affectionately known as “The Green Reaper” for her green burial advocacy. She is also the Manager of Historic Columbian Cemetery, Portland's newest green burial choice, and  author of The Green Burial Guidebook: Everything You Need to Plan an Affordable, Environmentally Friendly Burial. She serves on the Advisory Board of the Global Green Burial Alliance, gave a TEDx talk called, "Going Green: The Last Act of Environmental Volunteerism," and People Magazine honored her work by writing, “Elizabeth Fournier is doing her part to change the way Americans bury their dead.”

​Register to immediately receive a download of the recording from this 90-minute event for a sliding scale donation (starting at $10).

Good Dying: An African American Perspective with William Dixon
​Monday, August 14 at 8pm ET | 5pm PT

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William Dixon
In this webinar, palliative care chaplain William Dixon will draw on thirty years of healthcare experience and his doctoral research to explore the concept of good dying from an African American perspective. William will discuss how anti-black systemic racism and African American religious cultures impact individual views of death/dying, and offer thoughts on how to support African American patients at end-of-life.
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William Dixon is currently a Palliative Care Chaplain at Inova Fairfax Hospital in the Washington, DC metro area. He is co-author of the chapter on Cultural Humility in the Oxford Medicine Textbook of Palliative Care Communication (2015). William earned his Doctor of Ministry in Pastoral Care from United Theological Seminary in 2008 and is now pursuing a Master of Legal Studies with emphasis in bioethics. He is a Board Certified Chaplain who brings over thirty years of experience in healthcare and ministry, with a speciality in palliative care chaplaincy.

​Register to immediately receive a download of the recording from this 90-minute event for a sliding scale donation (starting at $10).​

Protecting Identity in Death with Jordan Rose
A Guide for Queer/Trans/Non-Binary+ Folx and those who care for them
July 2023 Webinar

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Jordan Rose
In this webinar, we will look at the ways the legal system, healthcare, and culture intersect  when caring for LGBTQIA2S+ individuals. We will cover basic definitions, next of kin structure, who gets a say in your services, and take a look at some cases of trans and non-binary decedents. We will also talk about ways to be a good ally and create a welcoming and inclusive environment in your death practices.

​Jordan L. Rose (she/her) is a licensed funeral director and embalmer and end-of-life doula living in Chicago, IL. She is on a mission to put the rights of individuals at the end of their lives back into their hands. She is vocal about creating inclusive death practices that hold up marginalized voices. When she's not talking about death and dying, she's playing Dungeons and Dragons or redecorating her apartment...again. She can be reached by email.

Register to immediately receive a download of the recording from this 90-minute event for a sliding scale donation (starting at $10).

Grief & People with Disabilities with Marc Markell
June 2023 Webinar

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Mark Markell
This presentation focuses on the experiences of people with disabilities as they grieve. Many people with disabilities experience disenfranchised grief, which means they do not receive the same level of support as people without disabilities. Although grief is highly individual, some people with disabilities who are grieving may have needs unique to this population. This presentation will cover person-centered and identity-first approaches to engaging people with disabilities; how people with disabilities may experience cyclical grief in regards to their experience of disability; and tips for companioning disabled people on their grief journeys.

Marc Markell is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Special Education at St. Cloud State University. Marc offers his perspective as a member of the disabled community with many years of experience working with disabled folks and grief. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and Educational Psychology. He is a certified Professional Development Specialist through the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning. He is a certified Thanatologist through the Association of Death Educators and Counseling, and certified in Death and Grief Studies from Colorado State University through the Center for Loss and Life Transition.

Register to immediately receive a download of the recording from this 90-minute event for a sliding scale donation (starting at $10).

Infant & Child Deathcare with Toula Saratsis
May 2023 Webinar

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Toula Saratsis
Toula is a Certified End-of-Life Doula that specializes in perinatal and pediatric palliative care, end-of-life, and after death care support. She was called to this work in 2016 after her daughter Angelica’s anticipated passing from a life limiting condition at nearly seven years old. Her work and service to others is rooted in advocacy that parallels activism through Community Death Care Education.

The collective goal of Infant and Child Deathcare advocacy is to raise awareness of connection, understanding, and options for children and their circles of care. Taking into consideration the unique needs of this population means normalizing and validating experiences that others may have difficulty connecting with. This presentation will introduce Infant & Child Deathcare Advocacy, community connections, and family stories. 

Register to immediately receive a download of the recording from this 90-minute event for a sliding scale donation (starting at $10).

NHFA Community Conversation on Unpausing
Free video from our May 2023 Event

The NHFA Is officially unpaused! Watch our Community Conversation on Unpausing, which took place Friday, May 12th, 2023. In this conversation, we reflect on what we've done during the pause and discuss where we plan to go from here.

Background: In the summer of 2021, the NHFA board decided that we needed to hit pause in order to break down over a decade's worth of an institutional vision that had not interrogated the “isms” inherent in our organization: notably racism, anti-trans bias, classism, and ableism. Since hitting pause, we've dedicated our time to reviewing, revising, and continuing to learn -- making sure that that everything the NHFA offers aligns with our belief that community-led deathcare is truly for everyone, without exception.