The Center offers education, training, resources, and other support to caregivers and professionals in the field. Our goal is to ensure that these groups have accurate information on what grief is as well as what is necessary to have positive end-of-life experiences and care. Our programs include:

✓ Our Grief-Informed Schools Program. We provide educational programs in schools in underrepresented areas that face regular violence, death, and other loss. We support teachers, staff, parents,  and other caregivers to make sure that they have the resources and tools to recognize grief in children and create a grief-positive environment where the children feel seen, heard, validated, and safe as they navigate grief and loss. Our goal is to work with teachers and caregivers to ensure that children are prepared for a lifetime of healthy grieving, interrupting the perpetuation of grief myths and unhealthy grief practices that have been associated with a variety of personal, interpersonal, and societal issues.

✓ Our Professional Caregivers Support Program. We work with professional caregivers, teaching them how to make death experiences as positive as possible for all involved, including the caregivers themselves. Our emphasis is on reducing unnecessary harm that is all too common in end-of-life care, and compassion fatigue. We promote healthy grieving practices for both clients and caregivers. 

✓ Our Family Caregiver Support Program. We work with family members and other informal caregivers who are supporting someone through a terminal or life-altering diagnosis or end-of-life care. In the program, we provide:

• Education on how to recognize and avoid compassion fatigue.

• Ways to find and prepare personal resources. 

• Information on how to help their loved one navigate end-of-life planning and logistics.

• Support and information on how to reduce harm and address grief before, during, and after the death has occurred.

✓ Our EOL & Grief Specialist Roundtable of Advisors. In this engaged group, we will bring together new and experienced doulas, grief experts, and others working in the end-of-life field to discuss important issues, support each other’s practice and aspirations, and raise the bar for end-of-life and grief care. The group provides a continuing forum for learning, networking, and idea exchange on prominent issues and needs in the field. An informal gathering was held in June 2024, and the first official meeting is slated for Fall 2024.

One of our main goals is to raise awareness of the end-of-life and grief processes, and to make sure that people of all backgrounds are aware of the resources available to them. Here is how we are getting involved:

• We have published our free EOL Care Planning Guide, which was collaboratively developed by experts in the field.

• We continue to highlight the importance of maintaining a peaceful, balanced, and empowered attitude toward end-of-life, loss, and the resulting grief through our blog, ongoing workshops, interviews, and more.

• We are currently planning a 2-year public campaign to raise awareness on the importance of compassionate, grief-informed end-of-life care, and to ensure that it is available to all.  The campaign will kick off with our inaugural Walk of Remembrance on May 3, 2025 in Summit, New Jersey. In addition to raising awareness, this event will also give individuals of all backgrounds an opportunity to honor the memory of a loved one and to participate in our work.