EVENTS
UPCOMING EVENTS
The Good, the VAD and the Ugly.
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ABOUT: ​Sadly there still remain many grey areas around voluntary assisted dying. Our next event will be facilitated by Annie Whitlocke, Tracey Rusden & Mary-Kate Pickett, who will talk about their own experiences: Mary-Kate with her beloved husband, Tracey will share her experiences with people she has been with who have chosen VAD and Annie will share her experiences as a death doula, with people who chose VAD and for various reasons how it can go awry.
Through our 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.
As a qualified Mindfulness practitioner for over 40 years, Annie is continually called to meet with families and take them through their portions and help in the making of plans. She has decades of experience and brings her boundless wisdom to every endeavour.
Tracey uses learnings and experiences from her life to deliver personalised support to those nearing their end of life. She transitioned from employment with formal health care services to End of Life Doula.
Mary-Kate's husband, John, chose VAD following his diagnosis and treatment for colorectal cancer. She will talk about their experience as one of the early cases of VAD in Tasmania.
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This information session planned take place on Wednesday 2-July 2025 from 7pm to 8.30pm AEST.​
Technology Supports for Community Care
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ABOUT: This event will feature: 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.
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Simon Lowe, co-founder and joint CEO of People Tech Revolution and The Ageing Revolution, is a seasoned expert in strategic partnerships and design thinking. With a strong foundation in systems change, user experience, and behavior change theory, Simon leverages these skills to create innovative solutions addressing both systemic and individual challenges. His passion for digital innovation is evident in his work, particularly in the use of gamification to foster meaningful conversations. Simon is the creative mind behind projects like "Carked It!. This card game tackles the sensitive topic of death and dying and won the green tick Australian GOod Design Award for social impact.
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Colin Pudsey is the Founder of SilVR Adventures, an award-winning Melbourne-based startup transforming aged care through virtual reality. Established in 2019, SilVR Adventures offers immersive, group-based VR experiences that help reduce loneliness and foster meaningful connections among older adults. With a background in sales and entrepreneurship, Colin previously built and sold his first company in Singapore before turning his focus to aged care innovation. His work has earned recognition, including a nomination for Melbourne Entrepreneur of the Year and accolades such as the Emerging Leader Future of Ageing Award. Today, SilVR Adventures operates across Australia, New Zealand, and APAC, delivering joy and engagement to older adults through technology.
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Holly Smith has over a decade of experience in the end-of-life sector and a background in community development and social change, Holly offers a unique and valuable skill set to the sector. Her previous work includes leading national community projects in rural and remote areas, managing early years of the Dying to Know Day campaign and leading Australia’s first Compassionate Communities learning forum. Currently with the HELP team at La Trobe University, Holly manages partnerships and trains health professionals in evidence-based, network-centred care leading to better outcomes for people at end of life.
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Catherine Ashton founded Critical Info, Australia’s first holistic end-of-life planning and support platform that brings together over 250 organisations across deathcare, bereavement, and estate administration in one easy-to-use place. Built from lived experience and a drive for systemic change, the platform helps individuals, families, and professionals confidently plan ahead and navigate what happens after someone dies. Catherine also hosts the podcast Don’t Be Caught Dead, featuring industry experts and people with lived experience to open up honest, practical conversations about death and dying.
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​This information session planned take place on Wednesday 6-August 2025 from 7pm to 8.30pm AEST
Registrations will open for this event closer to the date.
Ossuary’s
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ABOUT: Event details are being finalised and will be published soon.
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Cat Irving has been the Human Remains Conservator for Surgeons’ Hall since 2015 and has been caring for anatomical and pathological museum collections for over twenty years. After a degree in Anatomical Science, she began removing brains and sewing up bodies at the Edinburgh City Mortuary, where she saw many bodies in various states of decomposition. Following training in the care of wet tissue collections at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, she worked with the preparations of William Hunter at the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow University, where she is now consultant conservator. Cat is a licensed anatomist, and gives regular talks on anatomy and medical history. Recently she has carried out conservation work on the skeleton of serial killer William Burke prior to his display in National Museum of Scotland.​
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This information session will take place on Wednesday 13-October 2025 from 7pm to 8.30pm AEDT
Registrations will open for this event closer to the date.
Home funeral as a tool to raise death literacy.
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ABOUT: Event details are being finalised and will be published soon
​This information session planned take place on Wednesday 26-November 2025 from 7pm to 8.30pm AEDT
Registrations will open for this event closer to the date.
NDAN & AHFA jointly Presents - End of Life: Bodies in Dress and Death
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ABOUT: Event details are being finalised and will be published soon.
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Dr Pia Interlandi is a design pracademic in the School of Fashion and Textiles at RMIT University. Intersecting fashion and funerals, Pia addresses materials and materiality in relation to dress, death, decomposition and dispersal. Her doctoral research on textile decomposition in the context of natural burial has informed many of the guidelines for the materials that can be used within natural burial practices.
Pia's current research explores the regenerative potential of emerging body disposal methods, such as alkaline hydrolysis and human composting. She is currently working with industry to map the materials that we take with us, their impact to what we leave behind, and what the matter of our bodies can become.
Alongside AHFA, Pia is also a founding member of the Natural Death Advocacy Network, Order of the Good Death, and the Australian Death Studies Society.
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​This information session planned take place on Saturday 6-December 2025 from 9am to 11am AEDT
Registrations will open for this event closer to the date.
PREVIOUS EVENTS
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
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
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