FAQ

Questions and answers are split into 4 sections:
Deathwork, Classes, Press + Media, and Miscellaneous
Please scan the appropriate sections before reaching out as you may find the answer to your question on this page.

Deathwork:

  • We recommend volunteering with your local hospice organization as a way to gain experience working around the dying and their loved ones. Lauren and Erin both volunteered for years before founding Deathwives and found the experiences priceless, and it can be done on a very part-time basis. You may also like to look for death doulas in your area, who you can partner with and/or shadow. Find local doulas on our Referral Network. This is community work. Ultimately, your work is to find communities in your area who would benefit from your doulaship, and let them know who you are and what you offer.

  • No official training or accreditation is needed to practice as a death doula, and we at Deathwives deeply respect the democratic and accessible nature of this work. This work belongs to daughters who wish to care for their aging mothers and for anyone who hears the call. It is important to us not to standardize this care to a clinical level. This is community work. We hope that a governing board of this work remains absent. We also hear you - telling us that you want to be able to show the world that you have trained with us. Our solution is to offer our own certificates. Backed by us. They simply mean you have trained with the Deathwives, for the number of hours and on the subjects that your certificate states. We are proud to provide excellent education to our community.

  • No. Death doulaship is not medical care. We have sat with panels of hospice doctors and administrators to consider the integration of death doulas into hospice, but it would come with a lot of regulations, undeveloped medical coding and red tape we haven't found our way around yet. Many death doulas do choose to gain experience as hospice volunteers, which we think is valuable, but there is no official overlap between hospitals, hospice, and death doulaship in terms of regulation.

  • We are well connected within our local communities and can support students with connections locally. Our ability to do so nationally is more limited. This work is in its infancy as a career (though it is age-old as a practice) so much of the networking and infrastructure is being developed now.

  • We host a directory of death doulas and progressive death workers on our Referral Network.

    We encourage our students to research their own communities and create resource handbooks of the funeral homes, death professionals, and burial options in their areas, to use as a guide and resource with their families. No such thing exists on a national level (although there are some app developers dreaming). This would have some logistical complications as well, as funeral homes feel differently about doulas. For example, corporate funeral homes work very differently than small, progressive ones, with both doulas and families. It takes a bit more personal connection to build such a list, per location.

  • Home Funerals are safe, and they are legal in all 50 states, however some states require a funeral director to process the paperwork.

  • Yes. We strongly believe that a healthy relationship with death begins in childhood. Often, the first death a child will experience is a pet. This hard loss can also serve as a formative teaching experience about our natural life cycles, grief, and how to honor someone who has died. When a loved one (humans and pets alike) dies, it is OK for the child to be involved. That can include seeing the body, creating a memorial, and having age appropriate but honest conversations about death. When we don’t include children it can lead to death aversion, which can be harmful in the short and long term relationships with grief.

Classes:

  • Yes! Death work is community work. We encourage anyone who will ever die to participate in our death spaces. Talking about death won't make it happen sooner, but it can make your experience better.

  • All 8 of our recorded classes are designed to be bite-sized chunks of death-ed gold. You can explore our self-study library and jump into any of the classes there. Death Doula 101 and Environmental Death are the most popular for new students.

  • Yes! We offer several different certificate courses, at different depths, levels, and durations. Death Doula 201, Home Funeral 201, our in-person Labs, Deathschool, and Deeper Deathwork are all certificate classes. You can learn more about each on their corresponding webpages.

  • We know that live classes do not suit everyone's schedule, timezone, and learning style, and we care about making this information accessible to as many people as possible. We currently have 8 recorded (non-certificate) classes in our self study library, and are developing several fully asynchronous certificate trainings too. The best way to receive updates and announcements on our classes is to follow our social media (Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok) and subscribe to our newsletter (at the bottom of this page).

  • There is no governing board that recognizes death doulas and we want to keep it that way, as the regulations in end of life care are what got us into this state we are currently in. We want to humanize this work and bring it back to the family and the community. So while regulation is not important to us, good training is. Our training is recognized as a leader in death education. Should this ever become regulated, we will be the experts advised.

  • Yes! We can only teach on American laws, however, these are not a focal point of any of our curriculum. 90% of what we teach applies worldwide. Our international students leave our classes feeling just as equipped as our American students, and many have said that learning about American laws has helped them understand what to look for in their own country.

  • Each class we teach is on a different rotation schedule, with some of them coming around seasonally and others once per year. Our most popular classes Deathschool and Death Doula 201 run on a consistent basis. The best way to stay updated on our upcoming class schedule is to follow our social media (Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok) and subscribe to our newsletter (at the bottom of this page).

  • Death Doula 201 is focused on the professional role of a Death Doula. While Deathschool does include that subject as a part of the whole conversation, it expands into much broader spaces. Deathschool is more contemplative and offers intimate, small group study. It is our only program that includes individual mentorship with us, as each student has weekly access in our live classes, as well as a dedicated private session. Both programs offer a certificate of completion for the course, with the Death Doula 201 showing 9 hours of study and the Deathschool Certification showing 33 hours.

  • No. No death doula training could. There are no businesses hiring death doulas (yet). We acquire our own clientele through community education, networking, connecting with hospice, hospitals, senior centers etc. There is an enormous breadth of variety and scope in death doulaship, and individuals typically create a business that is quite custom to their skill set and their communities needs. We do offer a Death Doula Business Class if you would like to dive deeper into this part of the work.

  • We are sorry for the confusion and are currently working on finding a solution for this fulfillment issue - but don't worry! We still received your order, and you do not have to do anything to finalize it. Please keep an eye out for emails from us welcoming you to class or providing instructions on how to access your class content. If you don't see any emails from us in your inbox, remember to check your spam folder! If you still can't find anything and may have entered your email incorrectly at checkout, reach out below.

  • A confirmation email was sent to the address you entered at checkout, and a welcome email with the Zoom/student portal link was sent before the event. If you don’t see these, please check your spam mail! If you still can’t find them and may have entered your email incorrectly at checkout, reach out below.

  • You should have received an email (either from our system or from us directly) with login information for your class portal. Please check your inbox or spam folder for this email & if you still cannot find it, reach out!

Press + Media:

  • We’d most likely love to, so please do reach out! Include in your email the name of your podcast, the date and time you have in mind, and a short explanation of why you think we’d be a good fit. We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

  • Deathwives is committed to upholding deathwork with integrity, sharing the knowledge and wisdom of these sacred practices, and empowering our growing community. If you’d like us to join your virtual or in-person event, or speak on your panel, please reach out and introduce yourself and your work. We love to collaborate with aligned organizations and would be happy to send you our media kit.

  • Deathwives is committed to upholding deathwork with integrity, sharing the knowledge and wisdom of these sacred practices, and empowering our growing community. If you’d like to feature us on your show or film, or consult with us behind-the-scenes for your media production, please reach out and introduce yourself and your work. We love to collaborate with aligned organizations and would be happy to send you our media kit.

  • Absolutely, let’s chat. We’re passionate about nurturing and growing the field of deathwork through journalism. Please share with us a brief summary of the piece you’re working on and let us know how we can collaborate.

Miscellaneous:

  • To submit yourself to our Referral Network, please fill out this form. You can expect to see your profile added to the webpage within a few weeks to a month.

  • The best way to reset your account password is to visit www.deathwives.org/account/login/request-reset

  • The deathwork community is rich with brilliant and creative people, and there are countless resources that have helped us along the way both professionally and personally. We regularly share resources we love on our social media (Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok) and in our newsletter (subscribe at the bottom of the page). We've also compiled a public list of resources which you can find at the bottom of our Referral Network, and a private list of shows, movies, and books in our Deathfolx community.

  • We are so thankful to do this work and to be connected with so many incredible people through it. When we were first starting out, we were able and honored to meet with everyone who shared this same passion as us, and always encouraged others to connect with each other too. At this time, we find it difficult to find extra time in our schedules and are not usually available for casual meetings. We do have spaces where you can connect with us and the community more personally, such as our Deathfolx membership space and our social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok). You're also welcome to direct class and deathwork related questions to our email where we and our team will get back to you.

  • We love that so many of you want to get involved at Deathwives. It is an honor to do work that calls so many passionate hearts to it. While we do hope to continue growing our team and our opportunities, we are currently fully staffed & aren't seeking volunteers. We do try to offer work/trade scholarships for in-person classes and events when we can.

  • We have always cared deeply about accessibility, and believe that deathwork is rooted in it. Every one of us will die, and every one of us deserves a good death regardless of our identities and the circumstances of our lives. We offer class scholarships for all certificate programs and partner with payment plan options (such as Klarna, Shoppay, and PayPal). We also have a library of self study classes (starting at $11) and a community space for members, called Deathfolx that is free to join and welcome to all. We hope to continue growing so that we may offer more accessible options, while still being able to care for our own selves and our loved ones.

contact

We love hearing from our community, and care about your thoughts and questions. We will get back to you as promptly as we are able. Please understand that we field a large volume of emails, and respond based on our current queue & the urgency of an emails content. Delays in response are never personal.