Our Approach
Our approach is holistic, individual, person-centered quality care. We see death as a process rather than an event that takes place over time. We see building relationships with the person as the key to supporting them in their journey. We see a person as being made up of a unique set of circumstances and beliefs. We see the person as an individual.
If you are part of the staff at a hospice or are a hospice volunteer, please read our Hospice Letter of Intent.
If you would like to contact our Board of Directors, please feel free to reach out to [email protected]
Our Story
We began by having a coffee and talking about death. Our passion and desire to provide opportunities to die better created a bond. Â That bond soon became a source of community. That community slowly grew by one member each week. Each week gave us opportunities to share with more like minded persons, and this is where the story begins...
Jennifer Brooker
President - Board of Directors
End of Life Doula
Since completing the End of Life Care Doula Certification through Douglas College in 2017, Jennifer has been engaging people in conversations about death, dying, grief and loss through her work with New West Hospice Society, in her professional practice working in mental health, and at any opportunity she can. While companioning a dear friend during his end of life journey, Jennifer witnessed how lack of preparing and planning contributes to stress and tension at a time when one is struggling with acceptance and peace. Jenniferâs passion for companioning those on their end of life journey expands to supporting family members and carers of the individual as well as facilitating groups for those experiencing grief and loss. A life long learner, her education includes an Undergraduate Degree majoring in Psychology and a Diploma in Psychiatric Nursing. She has taken additional education in group grief and loss through Living Through Loss Counselling Society of BC, End of Life Studies at SFU, along with numerous workshops, webinars, and courses. Jennifer dedicates herself to being of service to those whose voices have not yet been heard. She is excited to serve End of Life Doulas as a member of EOLDAC Board of Directors.
Dr. Linda (Frankie) Franchi
Past President - Board of Directors
End of Life Doula
Frankie began her End of Life, Doula training completely by accident when her dear friend chose to die at home decades ago. There was no such thing as Doula training at the time. Wrestling with the health care system to create the home death that her friend wanted created a very deep impression about the medicalization of the death experience. This sparked the commitment and service to end of life clients. Repeated experiences of profound connection with EOL clients moved her to complete her PH.D on communication issues facing death and facing the death of a loved one. Frankie provides practical, emotional, and spiritual support to individuals and their families. She has served in hospice, palliative care wards and home deaths and appreciates the tremendous gifts from End of Life clients. In keeping with a ânonjudgmental service model", Frankie also has journeyed through medical assistance in dying processes with EOL clients and their families. And she embraces the motto âbe with and bear witnessâ to the universal needs and unique experiences of dying people and their loved ones.
Cynthia Brunelle
Co-Vice President - Board of Directors
End of Life Doula
Cynthia has been a thanadoula since 2020. Her professional background comes from business development and management. Managing multiple projects in her past career has helped her in the entrepreneurial journey.
Cynthia has been familiar with death for as long as she can remember, culminating in multiple grief experiences as well as being a support for families and children. She is passionate about the mystery around death. she supports people approaching death by providing guidance in advance care planning, spiritual and psychological support. Her goal is always to support families living or preparing to experience grief and bereavement. Cynthia also waltzes between birth and death, accompanying future parents.
âKindness and authenticity are the two qualifiers that best represent me. I accompany with my heart and my soul and I am truly passionate about making this line of work grow more and more. As a French Canadian, it is very important to me to represent the community of death workers around me in their process of business development and visibility''.
Heather Spratt
Co-Vice President - Board of Directors
End of Life Doula
Heather is also the Executive Director of the Dollar A Day Foundation, working to fund frontline mental health and addictions services across Canada, and lives with her husband and coterie of cats in St. John's, NL.
Donalda Weaver
Treasurer - Board of Directors
End of Life Doula
Donaldaâs journey in End of Life Care began over 35 years ago when she volunteered for Lionâs Gate Hospitalâs Palliative Care Program for 11 years on the PCU and co-facilitated Bereavement Groups. Over the years this experience enabled Donalda to help companion family members and friends through the dying and grief process. Volunteering is important to Donalda. She served on the West EndâCoal Harbour Community Policing Centre Board from 2009 to 2020. Donaldaâs professional career concentrated in Financial Management, encompassing positions from Bookkeeper to Controller. Donalda is exceptionally proud of Project Limelight Society, the not-for-profit charitable organization for youth, she co-founded in 2011.
Donalda completed the Douglas College End of Life Doula program in 2021, the Nanaimo Community Hospice Client Based Core Volunteer Training Program in 2022, and is excited to continue to volunteer with the Nanaimo Community Hospice, to build her End of Life Doula practice and to serve the EOLDAC as a Board Member.
Melissa Vukovich
Secretary - Board of Directors
End of Life Doula
Melissa realized early on that her family approached topics of death and dying differently from most of her peers. With her parents, she regularly vigiled at the bedside of loved ones and community members, participated in funeral rituals and eulogies, and visited with bereaved families from a young age. Realizing not every family had these experiences or tools, she combined her interest in science with her desire to help people; pursuing an education in Forensic and Biological Anthropology, and Thanatology. This lead to further studies in Emergency Management, and finally, upon discovering there was a name to describe what she and her mother were providing to their community, Melissa completed the End of Life Doula program through Douglas College in 2020. She has also completed training with Hospice Palliative Care Ontario (HPCO).
In addition to being a board member with the EOLDAC, Melissa volunteers with a rural women's shelter and resource centre, her local Pride chapter, and provides hospice and bereavement support with the VON. Melissa believes that volunteering is the ultimate exercise in democracy and that her community-mindedness, planning and organizational skills, and experience in operations management will support the EOLDAC in its mission.
Olga Nikolajev
Member at Large - Board of Directors
End of Life Doula
Olga Nikolajev is an End-of-Life Nurse educator and Fellow in Thanatology with over 25 years of professional experience as a registered nurse in various health care settings, including hospice palliative care. Olga has been involved in National, provincial and local community efforts to improve end of life care support. Olga facilitates Thanatology courses with Centennial College, and the End of Life Doula and Indigenous End of Life Guide courses with Douglas College across Canada, virtually and in-person. Olga is the founder of DyingMatters.ca a death awareness and end of life care support service and is the founder and director of the Death Doula Ontario Network. Olga has been honoured to share her end-of-life knowledge with over 700 participants/students within the last 10 years and is most proud of creating a âsafe & brave spaceâ for personal growth and healing.
Olga has a diploma in Nursing with a Certificate in Multidisciplinary Palliative Care, a Masterâs degree in Religion and Culture focusing on death rites, and a Certificate in Cannabis Science and Psychedelic Assisted Therapy.
Olga also serves as an advisor on a number of International, National and local committees and boards, such as EduCanNation, a Canadian Cannabis Educators Association, and the Association for Death Educators and Counsellors (ADEC) and continues to be a member in good standing with ADEC, RNAO and the End-of-Life Doula Association of Canada.
Renee Mitchell
Member at Large - Board of Directors
End of Life Doula
Renee Mitchell (she/her) has been blessed to grow up on the territories of the Kwanlin DĂŒn, Carcross/Tagish and DĂ«nĂ©ndeh peoples as well as La̱xyuubm Ts'msyen (Tsimshian), xÌŁĂ ÊŒislawÌĂĄwĂs (Haisla) and GitxaaĆa peoples. She is committed to the process and path of decolonialization, continuous learning and reconciliation with Indigenous Nations.
Renee is an End of Life Doula and wellness practitioner who is passionate about access to information around death and dying as a human right and sees it as an important part of reclaiming traditional knowledge that has slowly been lost over time. After spending time at the bedside and holding the hand of a loved one as they died, she knew she wanted to explore endof life doula work as a way to serve.
She now lives on the unceded territories of the xÊ·mÉΞkÊ·ÉyÌÉm (Musqueam), SkxwĂș7mesh (Squamish) & sÉlilÌwÉtaÊÉŹ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. In addition to completing the End of Life Doula certification at Douglas College in October 2023 and starting her end of life doula practice, Lifehavn End of Life Services, she is part of an all women leadership team as Managing Director of Tandem Innovation Group âa consulting firm serving businesses who are doing work for people & the planet in the areas of finance & operations. She runs her own private consulting practice as a contract Chief Operating Officer, leadership and social/environmental impact coach. She is finishing her undergraduate degree in Business Administration at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, returning as an adult learner after the diagnosis of a life changing chronic illness forced her to leave university in her 20s.
In addition to volunteering with the End of Life Doula Association of Canada, Renee volunteers with the Woodland Park Community Garden and is starting hospice volunteer training with the Crossroads Hospice in Port Moody, BC.
Elizabeth Nepjuk
Member at Large - Board of Directors
End of Life Doula
For over a decade, Elizabeth has worked as an award-winning professional actor, director, and producer in the Canadian theatre industry. They hold their BFA in Acting from the University of Saskatchewan and are a graduate of Vancouver Film Schoolâs Acting for Film & TV Program. Liz has had the great privilege of acting on the stages of Dancing Sky Theatre, Persephone Theatre, and the Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan Festival, as well as with many independent theatre companies in Treaty 6 territory. She is proud to have served on the Board of Directors for Live Five Independent Theatre and Dancing Sky, and as a founder of Ferre Play Theatre.
The prolonged period of societal upheaval over the past few years has had a profound influence on Elizabeth as a person and an artist, causing them to re-evaluate their artistic and professional goals. In November 2022, they obtained their certification as an EOL Doula from Douglas College in New Westminster. Lizâs desire to work in the field of deathcare has arisen as a natural, deeply personal response to the mass death event that we have all just lived through, as well as from witnessing the decline and/or death of several close family members. Concurrently, Elizabeth's work in theatre has taken on new meaning and possibilities for her; it has a special way of reaching people â of communicating with them, of touching their hearts and minds, and of creating connection.
Liz has returned home to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, to continue their theatre career, establish their Death Doula practice, and find ways to marry their two passions while serving a greater purpose.
Stephen Garrett
Member at Large - Board of Directors
End of Life Doula
Stephenâs walk with death and grief began on May 5th, 1988 when is dear sister Jody died suddenly and unexpectedly. Kneeling by her grave on the day of her burial he made a heartfelt vow to make meaning of her death. In honor of his commitment to Jody he walked away from a successful career in corporate finance and in 1990 moved from downtown Toronto to the west coast of British Columbia where he began his career in human service.
He has also witnessed the death of his father Lloyd, his brother Peter, and two years ago his dear mother Marge. Stephen has worked in four hospices over the past twenty-five years, at the Memorial Society of BC, as a cremationist in a funeral home, and now as a facilitator and trainer in grief and loss for Rhodes Wellness College. He is also a grief counsellor and End of Life Doula in private practice.
Inspired by the baby boomer generation and the enormous needs our families and communities across the country will experience as our senior population dies, he has taken action. Stephen was the lead creator of the End-of-Life Doula Program now offered by Rhodes Wellness College. He is determined to train and army of death doulas in order to support those who survive the deaths of our ageing out boomers, all 9.2 million of them living here in Canada.
Recognizing and honoring the fundamental importance of both death and grief he is determined to bring them each back to everyday life where they can teach and inspire all of us to live a rich, passionate, and meaningful life.
Elaine Andersen
Member at Large - Board of Directors
End of Life Doula
I was inspired to become an End of Life Doula as my encore career after decades of working as an Emergency Nurse and most recently as a clinical research manager mostly in oncology. For patients with a terminal diagnosis or chronic progressive illness, families often remained unaware of the disease trajectory and were ill-prepared for what lay ahead. They were trapped into thinking hoping for the best meant you could/should not plan for the rest. They had little idea of what their loved ones wishes were for their dying journey as conversations remained unspoken. For those who arrived in the Emergency due to catastrophic injury or sudden death, families were even less prepared. As death discussions remain a taboo subject for many, they are robbed of the opportunity to participate in a meaningful way in the dying journey of their loved ones. I offer my presence and past nursing experience to demystify death and the dying journey. We will all meet death, one day, someday, and as we age not so far away. Having our affairs in order, our wishes known and our plans made is the final gift to ourselves and those we leave behind.
Serving as a Member at large on the EOLDA Canada Board of Directors I look forward to supporting death literacy initiatives and a growing understanding of grief. I envision a day when the end-of-life doulas are acknowledged as a source to support the work of family physicians, lawyers and notaries, teachers and school counselors, community groups, faith communities, and those who are planning to live their lives fully and dying with dignity and a bit of sass if that is their desire. With respect, I love the potential impact to humanity to have us discussing and acting on what matters most in life and death. So happy to embrace this as my Encore Career!
Trish Harper
Member at Large - Board of Directors
End of Life Doula
Trish is a registered social worker, completing her MSW in 2003. In her mental health career spanning 30 years, she worked with children, youth, families, and adults of all
ages. She holds a keen interest in human development and the importance of transitions at every stage. Trish is a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, completing her trauma resolution training in 2012. It is always inspiring to witness the power of our collective innate wisdom, and ultimately, love, when they are given space and
permission to show up.
Trish is a lifelong reader and learner. She has read obituaries for as long as she can remember and has a deep appreciation for the brave, funny, honest, and at times, bittersweet stories of peoplesâ lives. She also loves facilitating workshops, trainings, and group work on a wide range of topics. Gathering people, and then learning and laughing together, is one of her favorite ways to spend time.
Trish feels very passionate about helping people tackle âunfinished businessâ as they approach their end of life. Furthering her education, she is working on the Geriatric
Certificate Program through McMaster University and she completed the End of Life Doula training at Douglas College in May 2024. She is now looking forward to growing her contribution to the mission of increasing accessibility and ensuring high-quality end of life care for all.
A true prairie girl with a love for the alpine scent of the Rockies, she was born and raised in southern Alberta. She re-located to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in 2007 with her
husband and two children. Along the way they have acquired two dogs and a greater appreciation for winter since it lasts so long here!
Kaila Bonnycastle
Administrator
End of Life Doula
Kaila is located in Coquitlam, British Columbia and has a wealth of experience supporting both large and small health organizations in Administration & Social Media Marketing for the past 10 years. Her work background has helped her become passionate in supporting people, establishing connections, and pushing through processes in a timely manner. She completed the End of Life Doula program through Douglas College in August of 2022, and has completed 30 hours worth of training with her local Hospice. She hopes to one day offer living funeral ceremonies, and to provide support planning living wakes for people within her community.
Kaila supports the End of Life Doula Association by managing our newsletter, overseeing our social media communications, as well as running our website, maintaining our membership database, responding to our incoming emails, and helping out with our monthly meetings. She is excited to serve the EOLDAC as the Administrator, and looks forward to connecting with all members.
Jennifer Mallmes
Co-Founder/Advisor
End of Life Care Doula/Registered Care Aide
Sarah Muxlow
Co-Founder/Advisor
End of Life Doula / Social Work
Sarah Muxlow is Co-Founder of the End of Life Doula Association of Canada and holds a degree in Social Work from the University of the Fraser Valley. Sarahâs passion for improving end of life care began after experiencing the loss of a loved one in 2013. She has dedicated herself to expanding education and services surrounding hospice, palliative care, and grief and loss. Sarah and Jennifer first met in 2016 and recognized the need to establish a scope of practice, governing body, standard of practice, and ethics for End of Life Doulas. Since 2016, Sarah has volunteered with the Chilliwack Hospice Society and is trained in vigil, hospice and bereavement care. She co-coordinates the Chilliwack Hospice Vigil Outreach Team and continually seeks to provide education on hospice palliative care and grief and loss support to her community.