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.
Trainings are open to professional or non-professional end-of-life caregivers and anyone wishing to prepare for a 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.
“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
Class size is limited and early registration recommended.
What is a Death Doula or Death Midwife?
Program Curriculums And 2024 Schedule
The Death Doula training contains all information necessary to prepare and support both individuals and their families throughout the dying journey.
Open to everyone.
Webinar Intensive Dates:
June 27 – 30th, 2024
September 13th-16th, 2024
In-Person Intensive Dates:
May 16th – 19th, 2024
Nov 8th-11th, 2024
Level I – Enter the Grave & Level 11 – Conscious Dying
Graduates receive a certificate of completion for Death Doula
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, reduce pain and suffering, 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
- 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 tools to uplift and empower the death journeyer to consciously participate and surrender peacefully into their last experience.
Topics Explored
- What to say to the dying
- Holding the container for fear and sorrow
- How to avoid death in the I.C.U.
- Completing advance directives
- Pain vs. Suffering
- Organ donation
- Physician aid in dying
- Ceasing nutrition and hydration
- 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
Graduating students will qualify to take the NEDA proficiency test.
The Death Midwife training consists of our two-level Death Doula training and includes advanced levels III and IV.
Pre-requisite level I and II.
Webinar Intensive Dates:
April 18 – 21, 2024
Level specific:
Level III – After the Last Breath – April 18 & 19
Level IV – The Life Celebration – Funeral Celebrant Training April 20 & 21
Level III – After the Last Breath & Level IV – The Life Celebration
Graduates receive certificate of completion for Death Midwife
Level III - After the Last Breath
The role of the death midwife from the final breath through the 3-day home vigil, funeral and final disposition.
Students learn after-death rituals, legalities and logistics for holding a 3-day vigil at home, how to understand and navigate funeral industry practices, alternatives to cremation and burial.
Topics Explored
- Unexpected death: holding space in the ER
- After-death rites and rituals
- Legalities and logistics of home vigils and funerals
- Preparation of the body (bathing, dressing, anointing)
- Laying the body in honor
- Stillbirth/infant death: bringing the baby home
- Options for final disposition
- After-death traditions
- Completing the Death Care Directive
- Self-care for caregivers: preventing burnout
Level IV - The Life Celebration - Funeral Celebrant Training
The Celebration of Life is the commemoration of one’s unique contribution to humanity and is an important part of the healing process for loved-ones.
Students learn the steps and skills to create unique, personal and deeply moving funeral and memorial ceremonies.
This is a highly interactive workshop where students are challenged to think outside the box to create powerful mock funerals and memorial ceremonies to honor the dead.
Graduates receive a certificate for 25 hours training as Funeral Celebrant.
Topics Explored
- The role of the Funeral Celebrant
- Designing & producing funerals & Memorials
- Virtual memorial services
- Creating sacred space
- Writing the eulogy
- Channeling the grief
- Rituals and tributes
- Opening and closing remarks / prayers & poems
- Pet Funerals
- Graveside services / Sea Burial services
Apply Today
“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
A Few Words From Our Founder Olivia Bareham
“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.” – 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 Offerings
Sacred Crossings is proud to host Grief and Loss expert Bill Berry. His deep process work is invaluable to anyone serving others at the end of life.
Please contact Bill directly for details and registration at billberryccmw@aol.com.
“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.