EVENTS
The Australian Home Funeral Alliance offers regular information sessions on a variety of topics to help raise death literacy.
UPCOMING EVENTS
NDAN & AHFA jointly Present - Train the Trainer for Doulas
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ABOUT: Facilitated by The Waiting Room Revolution, attendees will discover the 7 Keys to stronger communication & care. You can expect to walk away from this workshop with the “Workshop in a Box” toolkit, practical strategies to teach and confidence to guide families and communities in your own setting.
Hsien and Sammy from the The Waiting Room Revolution have spent their careers helping those who are facing serious illness. For years, they often heard patients and families say they felt unprepared and overwhelmed. Despite years of education, research, and advocacy, they continued to hear patients and families say “Why didn’t anyone tell me that sooner…”​
​They started the Waiting Room Revolution movement because they wanted to improve the patient and family illness experience. They want to build a community to share deeply human stories about caring for others. Through interviews with experts, clinicians, patients and caregivers, they are harnessing the advice of those with lived experience to better prepare those who are just starting their caring journey.
​This training will take place on Friday 29-November 2025 from 9am AEDT
Registration for this event is essential.
NDAN & AHFA jointly Presents - End of Life: Bodies in Dress and Death
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ABOUT: In this presentation, Dr Pia Interlandi will share samples and previews from the Decomposition Database, an evolving research archive that maps how textiles are used across practical and poetic end-of-life contexts and how they transform through regenerative processes such as natural burial, alkaline hydrolysis, and human composting. Pia will discuss the role of cloth in mediating our transitions between body and environment, and how the material choices we make at the end of life continue to shape what becomes of both the dressed body and its material afterlives.
Audience members will gain an understanding of how textiles interact with decomposition, why material selection matters in funeral and body-disposal contexts, and how design and science can work together to create more regenerative end-of-life practices.
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Associate Professor Pia Interlandi is a designer and researcher in the School of Design and the Built Environment at Curtin University in Western Australia. Working at the intersections of fashion, funerals, and forensics, her creative practice Garments for the Grave explores how materials and materiality shape our experiences of dress, death, and decomposition.
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​This information session planned take place on Saturday 6-December 2025 from 7pm to 9pm AEDT
This session will be recorded but wont be released to the public immediately, as it is part of ongoing research, so it really will be one not to be missed!
Registrations are now open.
Genocide – A survivors perspective, learning, healing and living on
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ABOUT: It has been 31 years since the Rwandan Genocide. For the last 31 years, Rwandan refugees, displaced people in and out of their homeland, have been forced to rebuild lives from the shattered remnants of a brutal slaughter. Faina Iligoga is one of those survivors. Now living in Australia and raising a family, she is called to ask, what now? How do a generation of hurt people heal; how do they embrace truth telling and support each other to hold their stories and share their experiences? What can they learn from the genocide?
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Faina Iligoga is a thought leader and she is on a mission. She has been working tirelessly to connect and bring together all the survivors living across Australia. She created a community of survivors who strive to support each other in a world that doesn’t necessarily understand their struggles of living with a genocide. She was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to investigate the establishment of a documentation and healing centre that will teach the history of the genocide in Rwanda and she would like to set this up in Australia.
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In the current climate of world events, there has never been a more urgent time to hear these stories with a deep listening and an openness to understanding the effects of genocide on generations of people and how we can all do our part to support survivors.
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​This information session planned take place on Friday 23-January 2026 from 8pm to 10pm AEDT
Registrations will open for this event closer to the date.
PREVIOUS EVENTS
SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET: The Ossuaries of Europe
ABOUT: Practical storage solution, morbid curiosity, or an important way to interact with the dead and contemplate our own mortality? Bones are the most enduring parts of our mortal remains, but the sheer quantity of people who have died in a culture where burial has dominated means that there have been too many bones to stay in the ground. Ideas about what to do with them have ranged from the simple to the astoundingly elaborate. This talk, hosted by Cat Irving, extensively illustrated with the author’s own photos, takes you on a journey across Europe that will encompass painted skulls and bejewelled skeletons, bone chandeliers and the six million people who lie beneath the streets of Paris.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
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TECHNOLOGY SUPPORTS FOR COMMUNITY CARE
ABOUT: This event featured: Simon Lowe from The Ageing Revolution, Colin Pudsey from SilVR, Holly Smith from Public Health Palliative Care Unit and Catherine Ashton from Critical Info, as they talk through the different technology-based supports and emerging options for aged and end-of-life care in Australia.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
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THE GOOD, THE VAD & THE UGLY
ABOUT: There still remain many grey areas around voluntary assisted dying. In this event facilitated by Annie Whitlocke, Tracey Rusden & Mary-Kate Pickett, they talk about their own experiences: Mary-Kate with her beloved husband, Tracey shares her experiences with people she has been with who have chosen VAD and Annie shares her experiences as a death doula, with people who chose VAD and for various reasons how it can go awry.
Through their combined stories we hope to highlight how things can be made smoother, what to avoid and how to engage and include our people. VAD is still a sensitive subject so opening up about it can only be of benefit we believe.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
GRIEF AND CREATIVE PRACTICE
ABOUT: In this video, Chloe Coelho will be discuss creative practice in grief spaces, past and emerging, inclusive of her current studies around memorialisation. She presented some memorialisation examples in contemporary discourse, as well as some from her own practice.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
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CREATIVITY & FUNERAL RITES: The use of Creative Arts during Wakes, Funerals & Memorials.
ABOUT: This presentation discusses the use of creative practices to honour those who have died/what we have lost, through funerals, memorials and events. We explore secular ritual, its use in modern Australian Funerals and ways to expand, personalise and deepen meaning-making through creativity. Joh Fairley, aka Joh Nyx (She/Her), shared images and videos of past work that she has done in developing secular art rituals around grief, loss and heartbreak.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
The Bioscope as a cartographic tool to facilitate conversations about death.
​ABOUT: Chetan Shastri's research and creative practice are situated at the intersection of design and death. During this presentation Chet shared the story of the Bioscope. Chetan's research and creative practice in Australia developed the Bioscope as a cartography of death and tool to facilitate conversations about end-of-life. Reviewing literature about death, co designing with palliative care practitioners, making designed artefacts and using them in community-based settings has been transformative. The research and creative practice contribute to both – how we think about design and how we think about death. Chetan concluded the presentation by reflecting upon emerging social innovation in this space and the potential shape that his own creative practice may take in the future – specifically in the area of designing for death and dying.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
The Role of Embalming in Home Death Care
​ABOUT: Amy Sagar will be discusses the process and role of embalming in home death care, including when it is and isn't necessary and environmentally friendly alternatives to body care.
​Amy Sagar is a funeral director for the not-for-profit funeral service Tender Funerals Illawarra which she helped open and operate in 2016. Amy has worked in funeral service for 16 years and studied embalming in 2013.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions​
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Exploring the Masculine Response to Death and Grief
ABOUT: In this event Ben Gibson, host of The Mourning After Podcast, shared the insights that inspired him to create a podcast focused on the male response to death and grief. Ben discussed masculine grief styles and how men can respond to loss, highlighting impactful stories from various podcast episodes. The session included practical tools, tips, and techniques to support men both in dealing with end-of-life situations and in their after-death integration back into life.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
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DECOLONISING DEATHCARE THROUGH HOME FUNERALS
​ABOUT: Decolonisation is a guiding principle that guides Hini’s practice as a celebrant and death educator. In this talk, Hini shared how Indigenous knowledge informs their drive for community, connection to place and desire to normalise emotions at funerals and death spaces.​
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions​
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LESSONS LEARNED: The evolution of home funerals across continents
​ABOUT: The UK and the USA have led the way on home funerals for decades now and as we start to build these practices and communities in Australia, it can help to know where they have come from in modern times and their history. There are lessons with what works and what does not and good people making a real difference in communities around the world. Claire and Lee offered honest, candid conversations about home funerals and the ways in which we can build community knowledge and practice in Australia.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
DYING TO KNOW DAY EVENT
ABOUT: Living Wakes are becoming more popular with Australians as the years go by and people start to rethink funerals, celebrations, memorials and all the nice things people say when someone dies. In this special Dying to Know Day event, Annie Whitlocke and Edwin Quilliam will share their personal stories, reflections and experiences with living wakes and share when they meant and how they worked.​
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
WAYS OF BEING WITH A FAMILY WHEN A PERSON IS DYING
ABOUT: Annie shared her own experiences and having learned the hard way what to avoid. How to take long distance separation, age, technology and disabilities into consideration during this period.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
COMMUNITY CAPACITY AND DEATH
ABOUT: In this session, Bec and Kaz discussed community approaches to end of life and after death care. Drawing from rich personal experiences they will talk through some of the deaths they have been a part of and in particular how Kaz’s husband Stan helped an entire community become death literate.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
​CHOOSING A HOME FUNERAL - THINGS YOU MAY WANT TO CONSIDER
ABOUT: In this session Zenith stepped us through some of the fundamental things to consider when organising a home funeral. Drawn from over 30 years of experience helping people do this, this session is aimed to expand your understanding of possible home funeral options.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
BUILDING GRIEF LITERACY: THEORY, PRACTICE & PARTNERSHIPS
ABOUT : This session, with the help of Jo, we unpacked the myths of griefs and include an overview of current bereavement theory. We will also explore what’s happening across the community to increase our grief literacy and how hospitals and funeral organisations can partner to provide wrap around bereavement care to clients and families.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
REFLECTIONS OF MY QUEER DEATH/BIRTH RITUAL
ABOUT: In this session, Alex shared photos and personal experiences of attempting to metaphorically dead while she reflects on the birth/death ritual she hosted - a queer death experiment. Conversations around consent, boundaries, and desires play an intrinsic role in the experiment.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
A DOULA'S SUPPORT IN DYING
ABOUT: At this event, facilitate by Tracey Rusden, we explored the role of an End of Life Doula, sometimes referred to as EOLD, including what does a doula do!
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
CREATING RITUALS OF DRESS AND DEATH
ABOUT : Dr. Pia Interlandi is a designer who addresses death through dress; dress as an act, as a doing, and as a becoming (poiesis). Harnessing a toolkit of skills that combine tacit and explicit knowledge bases, Pia intermeshes scholarly and professional practice, interlacing personal reflection, community engagement, and the rigor(mortis) of academia.
Through her practice, Garments for the Grave, Pia designs rituals for facilitating dressing and addressing the dead body. She co-designs garments with the terminally ill and dresses them with family for their funerals. As an academic, her teaching and research explore the materials and materiality of death, disposal, decomposition and dispersion.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
CEREMONY REALLY MATTERS
About: AHFA Committee member Zenith Virago shared her decades of wisdom about creating meaningful ceremony. With a legal and community background and work history, she is a seen as a community resource, assisting people to know and reclaim their legal rights, and co-create their own social rites of passage.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
WHAT DO I SAY
ABOUT : Do you know what to say when someone is dying, or to someone recently bereaved? AHFA committee member Annie Whitlocke has years of experience she to share on this topic.
Annie has completed Death Doula Australia training 1 and advanced, Death Doula Australia training Death of a Baby, Deathwalker 1 and advanced, and Midwifing Death Amicus. She works as a Clinical Pastoral Education (Monash Hospital) and sits on the advisory committee for Secular Spiritual Care Network.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
BODY DISPOSAL OPTIONS
ABOUT : Bec Lyons is the President of the Natural Death Advocacy Network and the Australian Home Funeral Alliance. She is a Celebrant, Tedx speaker, end of life doula and independent funeral director. She is a Churchill Fellow and the author of 'A Heartfelt Undertaking' and has travelled the world looking at different body disposal options. During this event, she presented an overview of her research and findings.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
AFTER DEATH BODY CARE IN THE HOME.
ABOUT : After death body care in the home. People talk about home funeral but what does it take to care for the dead? AHFA committee member, Hallie Halloran is of Ngemba - First Nations, Irish & Belgian bloodlines. She is the owner of Paperbark deathcare and she offers an accessible, affordable & eco-conscious family led service offering the knowledge, advocacy & guidance, so that they may do as much or as little themselves.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
ARRANGING A HOME FUNERAL.
ABOUT : AHFA committee members Alex and Hini delve into how to arrange a home funeral. What does it involve and where do you start?
Alex Antunes (she/her) is a Naarm based aged care worker and holistic funeral assistant. She is the current treasurer of Natural Death Advocacy Network and a founder of Queer As Death Collective which facilitate monthly Death Cafes for LGBTQIA+ people.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
WHAT IS A HOME FUNERAL?
ABOUT : Claire Turnham and Bec Lyons share what a home funeral is and how it all works.
Claire Turnham MBE is a mother of 4 and the UK/NZ based Founder of Only with Love. As a pioneer of the home funeral movement, she is passionate about sharing her skills, knowledge and experience to help others. Claire is recognised internationally as a leading Home Funeral Practitioner, Educator, Celebrant and Advisor.
Bec Lyons is the President of the Natural Death Advocacy Network and the Australian Home Funeral Alliance. She is a Celebrant, Tedx speaker, end of life doula and independent funeral director. She is a Churchill Fellow and the author of 'A Heartfelt Undertaking'.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
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GRIEF AND CREATIVE PRACTICE
ABOUT : Chloe Coelho discusses creative practice in grief spaces, past and emerging, inclusive of her current studies around memorialisation. She presented some memorialisation examples in contemporary discourse, as well as some from her own practice.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions
​
THE GOOD, THE VAD & THE UGLY
ABOUT: There still remain many grey areas around voluntary assisted dying. In this event facilitated by Annie Whitlocke, Tracey Rusden & Mary-Kate Pickett, they talk about their own experiences: Mary-Kate with her beloved husband, Tracey shares her experiences with people she has been with who have chosen VAD and Annie shares her experiences as a death doula, with people who chose VAD and for various reasons how it can go awry.
Through their combined stories we hope to highlight how things can be made smoother, what to avoid and how to engage and include our people. VAD is still a sensitive subject so opening up about it can only be of benefit we believe.
This event was recorded, and can be viewed via our Information Sessions​