14/08/2026
Many moons ago I did a workshop with the wonderful folks at Palliative Care WA who taught me the importance of having an AHD ... and how to make completing it way less scary! The facilitators are brilliant and if you can't make this date in Shenton Park, they have many other opportunities listed on their website: https://palliativecarewa.asn.au/education/community-workshops/
Have you completed your Advance Health Directive?
An Advance Health Directive (AHD) is a voluntary legal document that allows you to record the medical treatments you would or would not want in particular circumstances. You can also include your values and preferences for future care.
We offer free AHD document support workshops, where we guide you through each section, giving you the opportunity to work towards completing your document and ask questions along the way. Our next workshop is:
Tuesday 1 September
9.30am-12.00pm
15 Bedbrook Place, Shenton Park
Register for the workshop here: https://events.humanitix.com/advance-health-directive-document-support-workshop-sept-01
14/08/2026
another wonderful offering from Australian Home Funeral Alliance can't wait for this one!
Bookings are now open for "Death Literacy as Community Practice"
What if caring for people at the end of life was understood not only as a health service responsibility, but as a shared community practice?
In this thought-provoking presentation, Dr Kerrie Noonan explores the concept of death literacy—the skills, knowledge, confidence and social networks that help people navigate dying, death, grief and caregiving.
Drawing on more than three decades of research, innovation and community development, Dr Noonan will examine how death literacy is built through everyday relationships, lived experience and collective action. Positioned in a public health framework, she will share insights from the development of the Death Literacy Index and the growing international Death Literacy movement, exploring how communities can become active partners in supporting people through end-of-life experiences.
This session invites audiences to reimagine death literacy not simply as individual knowledge, but as a community resource that strengthens social connection, reduces fear and isolation, and enhances our collective capacity to care, grieve and support one another through life’s most challenging transitions.
Dr Kerrie Noonan is Adjunct Associate Professor/Senior Research Fellow at the Public Health Palliative Care Unit, La Trobe University and Director of the Death Literacy Institute. Her research spans public health approaches to palliative care and bereavement, death literacy, compassionate communities and the development of the death literacy index. Kerrie is Vice President of AHFA and Public Health Palliative Care International.
This information session planned take place on Tuesday 15-September 2026 from 7pm to 8.30pm AEST
Book now to reserve your spot at this online information session.
https://shorturl.at/mxAza
12/08/2026
Death curious people of Perth. Adding quiz master to my very unconventional CV! This weekend I am partnering with the folks from the City of Canning and Dying to Know Day to host a respectful and engaging cross cultural quiz about death, dying, cultural traditions and what matters most. It's free and will be a fun way to learn and unlearn all at once :)
https://www.canning.wa.gov.au/events/living-leaving-and-remembering-event/
Living, Leaving & Remembering 2026
Conversations about death, dying, and leaving a legacy are never easy—but they are among the most important conversations we can have.
City of Canning in partnership with Indian Society of WA (ISWA) request you to Join us for Living, Leaving & Remembering 2026, an engaging and respectful intercultural event that explores end-of-life planning, cultural traditions, and the importance of open conversations across our diverse communities.
This interactive session provides a safe space to share, learn, and listen, helping participants better understand how different cultures approach death, dying, remembrance, and legacy while encouraging informed planning for the future.
📅 Sunday, 16 August 2026
🕝 2:30 PM – 4:30 PM
📍 Hillview Centre
1–3 Hill View Place, Bentley WA
🎟️ Register now:
https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/living-leaving-and-remembering-event-tickets-1992610353206?aff=oddtdtcreator
This event is proudly supported by The Wicking Trust, Dying to Know, Ethnic Communities Council of WA, Palliative Care Western Australia, Australian Chinese Senior Association, and AfCAS.
Join us in fostering understanding, compassion, and meaningful conversations that celebrate life while preparing for the future.
12/08/2026
this is why we need doulas. not everyone has family, not everyone has friends ... and some people's friends and family don't have capacity ... but we all could use support, care and presence at the end of our lives.
Virginia Chang has been seeing Eleanor, a 101-year-old woman, most weeks, since January. Eleanor has been widowed for more than two decades. Nearly all of her friends are dead. She was admitted to hospice, but felt lonely, discarded. When her hospice learned this, they sent Chang. Chang is an end-of-life doula: a trained, nonmedical professional who cares for clients who are dying. End-of-life doulas—or death doulas, a term that some favor—may advocate for their clients’ medical or clinical needs. They may help with shrouding, funeral preparations, or grief support. At heart, they are guides to the unknown.
In the past decade, more than 10,000 people across the globe have trained as death doulas. Some attribute the rise in the profession to the fact that nearly a fifth of Americans are 65 or older; others, to the apparent increase in cancer rates among people under the age of 50, or fears engendered by the COVID pandemic. “In a broader sense, though, the end-of-life-doula movement can be seen as the latest chapter in a societal reconsideration of death that has been under way for more than fifty years,” Alexandra Schwartz writes. Schwartz spends time with the guides who remind us that death may be the end of life, but dying is still a part of living: https://newyorkermag.visitlink.me/Tlxx8K
