Course: End-of-Life Death Doula

Course Overview

Are you a nurse looking for a meaningful way to expand your impact beyond the bedside? Imagine offering compassionate, holistic care during one of life’s most profound transitions—guiding individuals and families through the end-of-life journey with dignity, grace, and peace.

This course is designed specifically for nurses who want to pivot into the rewarding and transformative role of a death doula. Leveraging your clinical background, you’ll gain the tools, knowledge, and emotional insight to provide non-medical support to those facing the end of life. From practical guidance on creating sacred spaces to techniques for empowering families and facilitating difficult conversations, this course equips you to become a vital presence during life’s final chapter.

If you’re ready to align your skills with your heart and create a legacy of compassion, join us and step into this life-affirming role as a death doula. Together, let’s turn your calling into a profound and purposeful practice.

Your next chapter starts here. Embrace this opportunity to guide others with compassion and confidence.

There are recognized additional training opportunities, which will be covered in the course. A Certification is not required to work as an EOLD. We offer additional learning opportunities for coaching and mentoring with Jane, to guide you on your journey, whether that is to start your own EOLD business, or to work for someone else, in this role.

In this course, you will be provided with an overview of EOLD work. At the end of the course, you will be introduced to a real- life situation. You will be able to get a feel for the work. At the end there will be a 3-question quiz.

Overall, the training should require less than 2 hours.

Learning Objectives for EOLD Program

1. Understand the Role of an EOLD.
2. Review Core Skills in being an EOLD.
3. Have knowledge of the resources to help you navigate the myriad of trainings and find one that works for you. Certification is not required.
4. Understand the pros and cons of private pay doula work versus being employed by an institution.
5. Start doing some work around accepting and planning your own death.
6. Understand and utilize resources that exist to support you in this work.

By the end of this program, you will have obtained an understanding of what it takes to transition from nursing into a fulfilling role as an EOLD, either to work for someone else or to develop your own business. You will understand what the work entails, how to find a training program that fits your needs if you feel you need more, and whether this heart centered and fulfilling work is the right fit for you.

To further enhance your learning experience, we offer an EOLD Mentoring Program. Students are coached and mentored, one- to- one, by the owner of Death Doula Jane, Jane Whitlock. She has 7 years EOLD experience and has been working in a skilled nursing facility for the last 4 years. She realizes that this work in most cases requires an apprenticeship to gain the confidence to start your own business and will support you on your pivot journey. She has successfully mentored many doulas as they transition from post training program to full- fledged doula.

About the Instructor:

Jane Whitlock

Utilizing Life’s Lemons to make Lemonade for the Community!

Jane’s husband became ill and died after a short time with kidney cancer. Hospice was amazing but Jane didn’t feel prepared.

She was not prepared for the active dying experience. like how to say goodbye to her husband, how to help her children (12 and 9) to say goodbye. She had no idea how to create rituals to help them all start to heal. She didn’t know what the time after his death would look like. She had this craving for someone on the hospice team to look her in the eye and ask her if she had any experience with death and dying. Someone who could stay with her as long as she needed. Now with her experience as an employee in a SNF she sees how stretched everyone in the medical system usually is. If you have been a nurse and sensed a need that you did not have time or energy to respond to, this is the career for you.

Jane is able to meet residents and families where they are. She spends time building trust, then educating people on their choices so their death can reflect the unique values by which they led their lives. She prepares people for moments that they might not be prepared for: active dying, sitting vigil, the moments just after death, saying goodbye to the body for the final time. In her work Jane has seen families heal wounds that have been lingering for years. She has also seen people let go of unsolvable hurts. Jane believes that facing our own deaths can be the last stage of development for humans. Doulas hold the space for people to do the hard work of deciding how they want to say goodbye.

Jane trained as an EOLD through Doula givers out of NYC in 2015. She created her own LLC death doula business, Death Doula Jane in 2017. In 2018 she delivered a Minneapolis Tedx entitled “What Death Taught Me About Life.” This launched her career as a death educator. At the start of Covid-19 she wanted more hands-on experience and trained as a certified nursing assistant and worked in a care center. In 2019 She co-founded the Minnesota Death Collaborative. In 2023 she joined the board for End In Mind, a MN based non- profit dedicated to educating people in having these important end of life conversations.

Currently Jane works as an Integrative Care Specialist/EOLD at a skilled nursing facility where she co-founded Full Circle Care, a program to support residents and their loved ones during end-of-life journeys.