Christine has been a death doula since 1998. She didn’t know that was the proper term, though, until she received her INELDA training! She has had the privilege of walking more than 60 hospice patients through the death process. Her 26 years volunteering with hospice continue—now with more ease, as she has reduced her corporate work by 75%. She lives in Mill Valley, California, where she holds a monthly Death Cafe and offers doula support.

Black Grief and Healing:

Why We Need to Talk About Health, Inequity, Trauma and Loss

Edited by Yansie Rolston and Patrick Vernon, OBE

The stories and poems in this anthology illuminate the unique ways loss affects the Black community and the effects of the widespread lack of understanding of traditional rituals and beliefs. They show us how people’s experiences of collective loss during the pandemic, the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire, and ongoing systemic health inequalities are experienced not just as individuals but also as part of a global community. Contributors from a range of backgrounds, professions, and identities discuss the challenges of grieving under the shadow of continuing adversity, including threats of deportation. Sources of strength and healing are also explored, from personal and spiritual responses to community initiatives and activism.

Pathways to Practice and Bridge End-of-Life Doula Training

Pathways to Practice: Being an end-of-life doula can mean many different things. Just as each person’s desires and preferences around the end of life are different, there are many pathways for doulas to offer support. Pathways to Practice is a six-week cohort-style course to help empower you with the skills to build your unique doula practice and model of care. We have intentionally shifted away from the language of “business development” because the spectrum of doula care is vast and incorporates many ways to provide service beyond just the traditional business model.

INELDA is excited to share that we have opened our training to Pittsburgh residents who are supporting the unhoused. This training was developed with a generous grant from the McElhattan Foundation. We are excited to be back in the city in May delivering this training to the community of carers supporting the unhoused folks living in Pittsburgh. This training is for all individuals who serve people who experience homelessness. This includes medical providers, hospice volunteers, social workers, street outreach workers, medical students, and people of any other relevant discipline.

INELDA is seeking on-site volunteers to assist with facilitating our in-person training and community events through the remainder of 2025. All are welcome to volunteer. Whether you are interested in assisting with an in-person community event or training, this will be an opportunity to experience firsthand while helping the educators teach or host the curriculum to others in the deathcare community.

We rely on public support and program revenue to meet our annual budget and continue providing educational and community programs, scholarships, advocacy, and outreach to expand the presence of end-of-life doulas. Help INELDA meet its mission and transform end-of-life care with a monthly gift of $5, $10, or more.

CLICK HERE to become an INELDA Sustainer today!

Phoenix magazine has published an article featuring INELDA educator Kim Stravers and features a quote from executive director Douglas Simpson about the role of end-of-life doulas and the support we offer.

From the decision to use MAiD, to Janine’s fearful realization that no medical professionals were allowed by hospice rules to be present, to their brave decision to connect with Thalia to seek help, we will set the stage for the great acts of courage and advocacy that followed. We will explore Thalia’s reasons for breaking hospice rules in order to remain with her patient, the reasons for them losing their hospice position because of those actions, and their subsequent appeal to an ethics board to challenge what they believed to be inhumane rules.

This webinar will be a powerful look into the ways that MAiD helps people with terminal illness transition, the ways that fear complicates grief, how deathcare practitioners can be the best advocates for their patients and circles of care, and how rules that don’t protect the most vulnerable are meant to be challenged. Come learn how end-of-life doulas can practice this courageous care for our patients and their circles of care. This webinar will be hosted by INELDA Executive Director and board member of Academy of Aid in Dying Medicine Douglas Simpson.

I work with a lot of clients to write their own obituaries, and the starting phrase I use for the conversation is “The end is not the story.” When we are in the thick of illness and grief and endings that are approaching too quickly, it is easy to get lost in what life is like now, to think that all they are is the disease and the treatment and “the fight.” I try to help people understand that they are so much more than what is happening to them in this moment. I’ve also had people “write a letter to a friend” about the things in their life they don’t want anyone to forget or the things they feel most proud of.  

—Rebekah Jacob

The National Alliance to End Homelessness is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization whose sole purpose is to end homelessness in the United States. It uses research and data to find solutions to homelessness, works with federal and local partners to create a solid base of policy and resources that support those solutions, and then helps communities implement them.

The need for palliative care has grown by 74% in the past three decades across the world, according to research recently published in The Lancet. While the growth is global, the countries with the largest rise are low- and middle-income nations, which represent 80% of people who have conditions calling for palliative care.

Japan leads the world in percentage of people ages 65 and over. It has also long been a leader in robotics. Today, these two distinctions are coming together in the emerging development of AI-driven robotic care for older people in Japan.

“Given our highly advanced aging society and declining births, we will be needing robots’ support for medical and elderly care, and in our daily lives,” Shigeki Sugano, a leading researcher in a humanoid robotics program known as AIREC, told Reuters.

Romantics have long referred to dying of a broken heart. But in the past few decades, scientists have found the literal truth behind the phenomenon of sudden cardiac death after a devastating event: the rare but powerful takotsubo syndrome.

Most commonly found in postmenopausal women, takotsubo syndrome is not yet fully understood. Using imaging technology, researchers have detected that the hearts of people with takotsubo syndrome often display a left ventricle that has ballooned out, making it difficult for the heart to deliver blood effectively to the body. Researchers have various hypotheses about why the ballooning happens: a surge of stress hormones, a temporary “stunning” effect on the heart, or reduced estrogen, given the population most likely to exhibit the syndrome.