Honoring Life’s Final Passage, Level 3 Annual Training: Becoming a Death Midwife/Doula, Home Funeral Guide and Educator – Reclaiming the Wisdom Traditions and Art of Death Midwifery and Home Funeral Guidance
Our Level 3 training offers a certificate in Death Midwifery and Home Funeral Guidance.
4 days ONLINE spread over 2 weekends.
November 16 and 17, 2024 and January 11-12, 2025
9:30 – 5:30 each day
PLUS a Half-Day Q&A session
Saturday, (TBA) from 10 AM -1 PM Pacific Time
Our Level 3 course offers more in-depth information surrounding EOL Doula practice, A large segment on Grief, Medical Aid in Dying, VSED, Celebrant Practice and the home funeral national movement.
Along with further instruction by Final Passages director Jerrigrace Lyons, there will be nine other guest instructors to share their skills and wisdom.
WHAT WE COVER IN LEVEL 3
Our Level 3 course offers more in-depth information surrounding home funerals and the national movement. 
- Along with further instruction by Final Passages director Jerrigrace Lyons, there will be guest instructors to share their skills and wisdom on subjects such as:
- Home funeral consultation role-play
- Grief & Family dynamics
- After death body care review and homework assignment to practice
- A variety of ceremonial styles and rituals
- Death meditation practice
- Dealing with autopsy and pacemakers
- Current political issues
- When NOT to offer a home funeral
- Shroud wrapping and shroud-only green burials
- Still birth and fetal home funerals
- Natural methods of disposition (green burial, aquamation (water cremation), and Natural Organic Reduction)
- End of Life Option Act, MAiD (Medical Aid in Dying), and VSED (Voluntary Stopping of Eating and Drinking)
- Resources for presenting to your community
- Exploration and guidance for starting a business or home funeral support group in your area
We are planning lively panel discussions of various topics by our staff and guest presenters. We are very excited about our online format for Level 3 and having many new graduates at the conclusion!!
Early Bird Price: $890
Save $60 by paying in full by the
Early Bird Date, Friday, November 1, 2024.
Full Price of course: $950 after Early Bird date
Early Bird Price automatically applied at checkout through 11:59 PM Pacific Time on the Early Bird Date.
Scholarship discounts available. Call us at 707-824-0268.
Our training will be 2 weekends about 1 month apart
plus a half-day FAQ session
Level 3 includes a certificate of completion for our death midwifery and home funeral guidance program.
Step 1: 3 WAYS TO REGISTER
By Check:
Drop a note in snail mail with the following info: Your name, email address, phone number, mailing address, and what training you are registering for. Mail it with a check Payable to Final Passages to: Final Passages, PO Box 1721, Sebastopol, CA 95473
OR PAY ONLINE:
Choose Deposit or payment in full. Then click “Add to Cart” at the top of this page. There is also an option to pay the balance due when you are ready.
OR PAY WITH CREDIT CARD OVER THE PHONE:
Call us at (707) 824-0268 to register by phone.
Refund Policy
Click here to see our Refund Policy.
Register for all 3 Levels here to save $600.
WHAT STUDENTS ARE SAYING ABOUT LEVEL 3
I think the course curriculum and materials were excellent and very well-developed. You included different types of content/modes in learning including music, video, ritual, poetry, humor, breakouts, Q&A, discussions, meaningful homework practice/assignments, facilitator sharing, etc. The curriculum and schedule flowed very well. The pacing and content felt just right to me. The curriculum felt well-rounded and came through different sensory and pathways for learning. You addressed head, heart, and spirit. We covered a lot of material (on Zoom even!) and I felt nourished and surprisingly energized at the end of each day. Juliana
I am so grateful to have had this opportunity. All of the teachers are amazing women with loving hearts, who offered skillful instruction. I am impressed and inspired. — Kelli
Truly, the power of having gathered all these like-minded people, seeking to change the way we do death, is breathtaking. Besides that factor, the videos of the ‘how to’ are really helpful. Seeing the language that’s used to speak to a family and the ability to see the techniques that are used when working with a body were a wonderful tool to help me get a better understanding of what happens in ‘real time’. — Cassidy
You were able to create such connection and intimacy on the Zoom format in a seamless way. We were truly held in a cradle of care, love and support. I felt very extra grateful to be able to do this deep dive into Conscious Death and Dying in the comfort and privacy of my own Home. It also made it very affordable. I learned and grew more than I ever dreamed. I am still digesting the rich feast, yet feel I will gracefully find my way to how I can serve others in this area of life and death. — Ranjita
YOUR INSTRUCTOR: Jerrigrace Lyons
Jerrigrace Lyons is a Death Midwife, End of Life Doula, Death Educator, a ULC Minister, Reiki Master, Author, Celebrant and a renowned pioneer of the home funeral movement. She is the Founder and Director of Final Passages. She created a 3-tiered certificate training program, guided nearly 500 family-directed home funerals to date, and pioneered a new field of “home funeral guidance.” Jerrigrace is featured in the acclaimed PBS documentary A Family Undertaking, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.
Jerrigrace consults with individuals who wish to plan for their end of life at any time in their life stream. She specializes in home funeral planning and is a Medical Aid in Dying Doula, supporting those who choose this option and those who are present to witness and hold space. She is a compassionate listener and loves to support those in the threshold. She uses conscious dying rituals for releasing attachments.
Jerrigrace heads up Final Passages Core Council and is also a member of SoCoElda (Sonoma County End of Life Alliance).
Tentative List of
GUEST PRESENTERS AND INSTRUCTORS
Manena Harper
Manena Harper, BA and End-of-Life Nanny, created Heart Centered Memorials (HCM) after attending the Final Passages Workshops. She has a diverse business background including managing a non-profit free clinic for seniors in Santa Monica, CA that was featured on 60 minutes and 20/20. She has been involved with end of life care since 1974 she has facilitated many home funerals, and memorial services including her husband’s, and supports MAID, (Medical Aid in Dying) clients. She has been part of the Final Passages family for almost 20 years. She has her own Personal Concierge/Assistant business and is a member of the Final Passages Core Council.
Constance Miles
Constance Miles, RN, MA (Counseling Psychology), Birth Midwife (37 years), Certified Death Midwife and End of Life Doula, Poetess and Celebrant
Constance birthed her four daughters at home and midwifed her eldest and youngest during the home births of her six granddaughters.
Transitioning from birth work to end of life work was a natural segue, after midwifing her son by marriage through his final journey and removing her mom from life support. Both events inspired original poems which grew into her self-published collection, Lamentations: Grief and Remembrance.
As a registered nurse, Constance has worked in a multitude of settings.
She offers deep listening, a compassionate presence and a quirky sense of humor. She is on the Final Passages Core Council and Sonoma County End of Life Doula Alliance (SoCoELDA) and has guided many home funerals. She cherishes being a Nana, gardener, poet and dancer.
Michelle Vesser
Michelle Vesser has a deep connection with the wild and spiritual world.After 30-years as a farmer/gardener, she created Everything Sacred: Tending Your Inner and Outer Landscape which offers her passions as an end-of-life doula, home funeral guide, spiritual and grief counselor, and organic garden coach.
Michelle brings practical, emotional and spiritual experience to individuals and families in the dying process, at the time of death, during after death care, and through their grieving process. She is a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner and offers the end-of-life practices of Phowa and Zhitro. Michelle co-foundered the Sonoma County End-of-Life Doula Alliance www.socoelda.com
Lori Goldwin
Lori Goldwyn has worked in the EOL field since becoming a Hospice & Palliative Care volunteer in 2013. In 2016, she took INELDA’s EOL doula training & since then, she has developed her doula practice & continues to learn from other EOL professionals. Since 2018, she has specialized in assisting people who choose the CA End of Life Option Act, while learning from & collaborating with Dr. Lonny Shavelson & Thalia DeWolf, RN, founders of the American Clinicians Academy for Medical Aid in Dying (ACAMAID).
Lori is a founding member of the Bay Area End of Life Doula Alliance. She has a Masters of Science degree in Speech & Language Pathology & lives here in the Bay Area in lovely Point Richmond.
Leslie Shore
Leslie “Yatie” Shore is a doula and mythologist who has served the dying directly for 25 years and was called to the bedside as a child. As a retired journalist, Leslie also covered sudden death repeatedly over years. Leslie earned a doctorate in mythology and psychology, studying cross-cultural responses to death and loss. As a member of a Jewish community in the Pacific Northwest, she leads a Chevra Kadisha (holy society) and teaches Tahara, the water blessing, funerary ritual that is performed upon death. Leslie pairs ancient ritual elements with modern bereavement practices to create a revolving memorial practice.
SUPPORT TEAM
Mark Hill, Tech Guru
Mark is a wisdom keeper with many life skills. He is a minister who facilitated psychic- meditation groups for a decade in LA and an Intenders group in Sebastopol for 10 years. Mark is an Herbalist, Reiki Master, Acupressure Practitioner and a Certified Diet Counselor.
He provides core support to Final Passages and Home and Family Funerals by assisting in guidance and hands-on family support and he is Final Passages’ Audio/Visual Technician.
Final Passages could not function without this man behind the scenes.
Sally Shannon, Programming and Panelist
Sally wrote her Masters thesis on “Dying, Loss and Grief”. She has continued studying with Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Raymond Moody, Sylvia Boorstein, Rabbi Alan Lew, z”l, and Jerrigrace. Sally participates in tahara, the Jewish ritual washing and blessing before burial. She coaches individuals and families preparing their end of life plans, recently developing a Covid-19 Advanced Directive Addendum.
LENGTH AND HOURS OF WORKSHOP
4 days on 2 weekends, Saturday and Sunday from 9:30 – 5:30 Pacific Plus a half-day FAQ session
AFTER LEVEL 3
We have a new 2-day Graduate Practicum Training, offered once per year.
For local graduates, ask about Internship options. Jerrigrace is usually available by telephone to assist any graduates with a home funeral.
