Courses and Trainings
Welcome to our Education Programs!
Sacred Crossings Institute offers death education classes and intensive certificate trainings for the Death Doula and Death Midwife.
Our trainings are open to professional and non-professional end-of-life caregivers and anyone wishing to prepare for a conscious, peaceful transition.
Classes are deeply rooted in spiritual practices from a variety of cultures and traditions and are facilitated by our founder, Olivia Bareham, and supported by guest speakers. Classes are offered via live webinar or in-person in Los Angeles.
The Death Doula
CERTIFICATE TRAINING PROGRAM
The two-level Death Doula training contains all information necessary to prepare and support individuals and their families throughout the dying journey.
Graduates receive the Death Doula Certificate of Completion
Open the boxes below for topics covered in each level. Scroll down for registration links
Level I - Enter the Grave
This foundation course will radically transform your fears and beliefs about death and dying.
Students learn tools to eliminate death anxiety, and receive death with open-hearted acceptance.
Topics Explored
- Giving Birth / Receiving Death
- Connecting to source through somatic movement
- Examining fears and beliefs
- Energy fields and the luminous body
- Releasing the past
- Healing ancestral wounds
- Family Constellations
- The journey of the soul
- Buddhist perspectives on death and dying
- The life review
- The death rehearsal
Level II - Conscious Dying
Students learn how to guide and support the death journeyer and their family from terminal diagnosis to the last breath; how to hold a family through sudden death
Topics Explored
- Completing advance directives
- Holding the container for fear and sorrow
- Avoiding death in the I.C.U.
- What to say to the dying
- Pain vs. Suffering
- Organ donation
- Physician aid in dying
- VSED – Voluntarily Stopping Eating & Drinking
- The spiritual process of dying
- Being a healing presence at the death bed
- Creating a legacy project
- Healing relationships / Saying goodbye
- Meditations and practices for relieving death anxiety
- Rituals at the deathbed
“This course was TRULY life changing. Olivia is an incredible teacher, I learned so much – much more in depth than I thought. Such a personal spiritual and emotional journey. Thank you!”
-Kristen Sheridan
2026 Course Schedule
Students may take courses out of sequence & interchange webinar and in-person. Each class is a stand-alone course. Students may interchange webinar & in-person classes
Level I
‘ENTER THE GRAVE’
Webinar
September 25 & 26
9am – 5pm daily
$495
Level II
‘CONSCIOUS DYING’
Webinar
October 23 & 24
9am – 5pm daily
$495
Level I &
Level II
In-Person
November 12, 13, 14 & 15
Los Angeles, California
$1200
Graduates receive a Certificate of Completion for Death Doula and are eligible to take the NEDA proficiency test.
If you have difficulty registering for a class, please write to
Sacred Crossings Institute offers death education classes and intensive certificate trainings for the Death Doula and Death Midwife.
“Olivia created a container that was sacred, safe and cohesive to move through a tremendous amount of emotionally stimulating content. Thorough, sensitive and complete.” – Satya Love
“The class work is comprehensive, deep and intimate and I strive to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to ask questions and process with other students. Together, we create a safe container whether we meet in person or via the zoom format.
The material, stories and films shared are constantly updated from my experiences with families utilizing our alternative funeral home and my work in the field as a Death Midwife.
It is a profound honor to offer these teachings and to help in some small way to change the culture of death and dying.
I look forward to meeting you.”
With love,
Olivia
“Olivia creates the most sacred of spaces, in which the parts of yourself that are beyond your words, beyond your knowing, and even those parts that perhaps you’ve deemed beyond the reach of love, are able to bubble up to the surface, express themselves, and either be integrated or be released, depending on whether or not they serve your path.”
-Kendell Courtney Klein
Special Offering
FREE MONTHLY WEBINARS!
For Death Doulas and Death Midwives and those who are navigating the end-of-this-life journey.
These lively, informative evenings provide an opportunity to share resources and hear stories and tips from our founder, Olivia Bareham. Please join us!
Free Webinars!
ASK THE DEATH MIDWIFE!
First Friday of every month on ZOOM.
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM PST/PDT
For those who are dying and all who care for them. Bring your questions!
“What happens at death is so unspeakably glorious that our imagination and our feelings do not suffice to form even an approximation of it”
– C.G. Jung
The Advance Death Care Directive
Would you like a Shroud? Casket? Funeral service? Home funeral? Fire Cremation? Water Cremation? Buried at sea? Turned into Soil?
There are so many decisions!
Write your wishes down in this digital planner.
"Relieve your loved ones from making these difficult decisions, complete your directive today!"
Contact Sacred Crossings
If you would like to join our e-mail list or have any questions about our education programs or funeral services, please complete the form below.