How to Become an End-of-Life Educator: A Step-by-Step Guide

If you’re reading this, it’s likely that something is pulling or pushing you to become an end-of-life educator. Perhaps you are a death doula or other end-of-life-care provider, or considering this path at this point in your life. Maybe you’ve been thinking about it for a while, or maybe this is the first time you’ve heard of this. In any case if the task seems daunting and you don’t know where to begin, this article should help!

Below are the steps that Willow's co-founder, Michelle, and I took when we first started. For each step I have suggested some things to think about to help you move forward. I hope you find it helpful.

Step 1: Determine your objective or your “why?”

It’s hard to begin something new without knowing what motivates you and what you want to accomplish. Michelle and I did a lot of research back in 2015 to see what people were doing in the “end-of-life space” so that we could get a sense of what was lacking and needed. More importantly, we identified what would be most rewarding and fulfilling for us to contribute to the field. 

During the same time, I did a fabulous training on community deathcaring (that unfortunately is not being offered anymore) which greatly helped inform my next steps. It was in that training program that I discovered how exploring my own mortality impacted the way I live my life and my attitude toward death and dying. I was — and remain — convinced that everyone can benefit from this kind of end-of-life education.

Michelle and I also realized that there were pivotal events in our lives, such as past experiences with death, traumatic car accidents, and other losses that profoundly impacted us and motivated us to be in service to others. 

Here are some questions that may help you in determining your “why”:

1. What events or experiences inspired you to want to be an end-of-life educator? 

• Write down the direct and indirect impacts that those events or experiences had on you. Please include positive and negative impacts.
• If you’ve done any kind of relevant training, what parts of the training did you find most impactful and fulfilling?

1. What impact do you want to have and on whom? What changes do you want to make in people’s lives?

• Here are some examples to choose from: check off all that apply. 

Step 2: Make a list of topics to teach

Now that you know the difference you want to make in people’s lives. How will you do it?  

Imagine you're invited to teach a series of classes or workshops to prepare people for end-of-life. What would each session focus on? Brainstorm all your ideas in a bulleted list. You can do this on your device or on paper. If you use paper, consider using one post-it note for each topic so you can play around with the order afterwards. But for now, just generate as many ideas as you can that align with your objectives. 

When Michelle and I started, one of the first things we did was create Willow’s Reality of Our Mortality® Planning Checklist. And interestingly, it has hardly changed since our early days. If you don't already have this list, feel free to download it for free now. 

Step 3: Choose one or more topics that most excite you.

To be an end-of-life educator, it helps to narrow your focus — at least when you're starting out. This way you can test just one “minimum viable offer,” and refine it until you're ready to expand.

Some questions to consider:

1. Which of the topics you brainstormed are you most eager to promote and teach? 
2. Which topic would be the easiest for you to teach?
3. For which of the topics do you already have ideas or resources that will make developing a curriculum enjoyable and easy? 

If you used post-it notes for step 2, you can pull the preferred topics out and see them on their own. Otherwise, circle the ones that stand out on your page, or move them to the top of your page if you did this on a device. If you chose more than one topic, hopefully they are topics that go together or build off each other. If not, try to narrow it down to either one topic or up to three that go together nicely. 

Once we had our list of topics, Michelle and I were both drawn to starting with helping people write Legacy Love Letters®, and a Heart Will®.

We wanted to start there because of the universal appeal we knew these topics would have.
Writing Legacy Love Letters® gets people thinking about their mortality in a way that also generates love and connection in their most precious relationships. Writing a Heart Will® helps people reflect on their life and think about the legacy they want to leave behind. 

Step 4: Create (or get access to) the curriculum for your first event.

Instructional design might not be your area of interest or expertise, and that's okay. Many prefer teaching or facilitating over creating the curriculum or content. Being clear on where you want to spend your time, and what lights you up is VERY important.

If you are someone who enjoys creating instructional design, then it should be fun!

There are many different approaches, but a good curriculum values the diverse experiences that your audience will bring to the workshops, accommodates various audiences and learning styles, allows learners to immediately use what they learn, and incorporates creative and engaging exercises.

If you don’t enjoy what can be the time-consuming task of designing your workshops, or you're looking for ideas of what to present, there are other options. In the Willow EOL Educator® program, detailed scripts for all the Willow Workshops® we designed will be made available to you. They all have the above characteristics and are always experiential and heart centered.

The Willow approach can be described like this:

• We don’t lecture, we inquire. We use juicy questions to make people ponder, think, and go into their hearts.
• We don’t teach, we engage. We integrate creative tools into everything we do, to make the experience as deep and as memorable as possible.
• We don’t shy away from emotions. We welcome them as a pathway to growth and healing. 
• We create connections. We turn strangers into friends and we deepen the bonds between those who already know each other.
  

Most of Willow Workshops® include handouts, checklists, and/or slide decks to go with them. If you design your workshops, remember that additional tools like this are part of the learning experience and make an impact on the quality of the session. Take care to make them clear and aesthetically pleasing. This is especially important for visual learners, which most people are!

Is creating instructional design for you? For each question below, please answer yes or no.

1. Have you ever had to design the curriculum for a teaching environment, a workshop, or a long presentation?
2. Is instructional design something that interests you and that you want to spend time on?
3. Do you know how to design a “good curriculum” as described above?
4. Do you have the time it takes to craft a good curriculum?
5. Do you feel confident about creating additional resources (handouts, slides, etc) for your workshops?

If you’ve answered “yes” to most of the questions, then great! Go ahead and create!

If you’ve answered “no” to most of the questions, then creating instructional design is likely not your strong suit, or you just want to save hours and hours of time. If this is you, please consider joining the Willow EOL Educator® Program.

As a Willow EOL Educator® you’ll get access to dozens of zoom-based and in-person workshops on a variety of universal and heart-centered end-of-life education and planning topics. Learn more here. 

Step 5: Find your Audience

When it comes to filling seats at your workshops there are generally two scenarios or a combination of the two. Either you are invited by an organization that takes care of finding the attendees, or you must invite people yourself. There are endless strategies to be successful for each of these approaches and both of them begin with you being able to talk about (or write about) your services in a compelling way. 

There’s far too much to say about marketing here, but know that marketing need not and should not feel salesy. Good marketing is authentic and from the heart. It’s all about creating a match between what you have to offer and how others can benefit from you. 

At Willow, we pride ourselves in offering marketing guidance. Our team has years of marketing experience and training and offers this to all Willow EOL Educators® as part of the Willow EOL Educator® Program. Educators benefit from monthly group and one-on-one coaching calls as well as all the information that is in the knowledge base. 

Step 6: Practice

Once you have all the information, you’ll need to deliver your workshop. Even if you created the material yourself, you still have to prepare to make the learning experience as seamless as possible.

Ways to practice:

1. With your script or outline in front of you, stand up and “perform” as if you had an audience. Feel free to use a mirror, or film yourself to see how you did. 
2. Invite some close family or friends to be your first audience, and let them know that it is a practice session. When you are done be sure to ask for feedback.
3. Do steps one and two until you feel confident “enough” to market your workshops more widely.

Note that you want to feel good about facilitating your first workshop, and it’s OK to feel nervous. You don’t have to know everything. If your audience members or clients ask you something you can’t answer, you simply use the opportunity to do some more research, and let them know you will follow up with the answer.

There’s no such thing as perfection, so don’t try to attain it. 

It may interest you to know that even after crafting the workshops ourselves, we always reviewed them before an event. This gives us the opportunity to tailor our workshops for the specific audience, considering the number of people we expect to attend, their unique background, knowledge, etc. I also like to put in the real times for the workshop segments as that helps me keep on track.

Other Important Details:

Finally there are other important details to consider when becoming an end-of-life educator. As someone offering these services, you must cover yourself for liability claims, and you must set your fees. At Willow we have guidance on both of these important steps. 

Our motivation at Willow is to make it as easy as possible for end-of-life service practitioners to lead transformational conversations around the reality of our mortality® so that people wake up before their time’s up and live and die well.