Who This is For
For hospice volunteers who regularly sit alongside people experiencing serious illness, dying, loss, and uncertainty, and who want practical skills to listen well while caring for their own emotional wellbeing.
Course Structure
This course offers a structured, skills-based approach to listening, presence, and self-care. Sessions combine teaching, practical exercises, and facilitated discussion, with an emphasis on emotional boundaries, sustainability, and ethical care. The course is not therapeutic and does not require participants to share personal grief experiences.
- 5 Weeks
- Maximum 8 participants
- Weekly facilitated sessions of 90 minutes.
- Skills-based teaching grounded in hospice contexts
- Practical listening and boundary exercises
- Facilitated discussion
- Time for reflection and integration
Supporting Materials
- A printed course handbook for each participant
- Short pre-recorded refresher summaries
- Optional guided meditations for grounding and integration
Investment
- £240 per 90-minute session (up to 8 participants)
- +£7 per participant for printed materials
- Optional bespoke adaptation and additional materials available by agreement
My Background
My background
I trained as a paediatric nurse at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children and staffed on paediatric oncology and HIV units.
I have a BA in African and Asian Medical Related Studies and Study of Religions and an MA in Contemporary Theologies. My PhD explored Healing in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
I now run Transforming Loss, through which I offer the evidence-based Grief Recovery Method programme, end-of-life planning services and applied storytelling. This training draws on my clinical, academic, and facilitation experience, alongside many years of working with grief, loss, and end-of-life contexts.
Recommendations
Rachel is someone who listens carefully, speaks thoughtfully, and carries her responsibilities with seriousness and grace.
Michael Williams, Memoir Studio
Rachel is a highly skilled facilitator, full of empathy and understanding, alongside a solid practical knowledge of death, grief and loss. She leads groups very competently, and responds sensitively in the moment, if that is required. I would highly recommend her.
Jane Duncan Rogers, Before I Go Solutions