Planning before a crisis
Starting conversations, recording wishes, advance-care planning, funeral wishes, practical preparation and knowing where important information is kept.
Workshops and death education
Clearer conversations about death, dying and grief.
The Death Guide provides practical, thoughtful education that helps people understand difficult subjects before they are required to face them in a crisis.
Presentations and workshops can be shaped for community groups, workplaces, care organisations, government bodies, health services and professional teams.
Building death literacy
People cope better when the first conversation happens before the crisis.
Death literacy is the practical knowledge, language and confidence people use to understand death, make plans, support others and find appropriate help.
A session can introduce one subject clearly or bring several connected topics together. Content is shaped around the audience, the setting and what the organiser wants people to understand or do differently afterwards.
What happens when someone dies
Plain-language explanations of common NSW processes, expected and unexpected death, immediate decisions and the roles of different professionals.
Dying, care and communication
Understanding dying, palliative care, caring at home, family communication and supporting people who are approaching the end of life.
Funerals and memorial choices
Burial, cremation, direct cremation, ceremonies, viewing, personalisation, costs, family involvement and questions to ask a funeral director.
Grief and bereavement
How grief may affect people, helpful and unhelpful assumptions, practical support, difficult anniversaries and when additional help may be useful.
Difficult conversations
Talking about death, helping adults support children, family differences, grief in groups and responding thoughtfully when words feel inadequate.
Community education
Accessible sessions for people who want to understand more.
Sessions may be developed for community organisations, libraries, councils, adult-education groups, seniors, carers, faith or cultural groups and other local networks.
The content is approachable and practical. Nobody is required to share personal experiences, and questions can be discussed without assuming there is one correct way to approach death or grief.
Organisations and professional teams
Education connected to real responsibilities.
The Death Guide can work with workplaces, government organisations, aged and community care, health and support services, funeral-sector teams, conferences and other professional groups.
Content may focus on public understanding, communication, grief-aware practice, supporting families, workplace response or the particular situations staff encounter.
Flexible delivery
A format shaped around the purpose—not a fixed presentation for every audience.
The length, depth, examples and amount of discussion can be adjusted to suit the group and setting.
Presentation and open questions
A focused teaching session followed by generous time for questions. A common format is approximately 45 minutes of structured content and up to 45 minutes of discussion.
Interactive workshop
A facilitated session using questions, discussion, practical examples or small activities to help participants apply the material.
Extended or half-day session
More time for connected topics, organisational examples, structured discussion, breaks and questions without trying to compress everything into one talk.
Online education
Live video presentations or workshops for distributed teams, regional participants or organisations that need an accessible remote option.
Conference or panel contribution
A keynote, conference session, facilitated conversation or panel contribution shaped around the event theme and intended audience.
Tailored series
A planned sequence for organisations or communities that need several connected subjects addressed over time rather than in one crowded session.
Grief-aware workplaces
Helping organisations respond with greater confidence and humanity.
Death and grief enter workplaces through bereavement, caring responsibilities, serious illness, traumatic events, suicide, the death of a colleague or the experiences staff carry from their work with the public.
Education may help managers and teams understand common grief responses, communicate more thoughtfully, recognise practical needs, avoid harmful assumptions and know when internal or specialist support should become involved.
- Grief-aware communication for managers and colleagues.
- Supporting a team after a death or significant loss.
- Responding when an employee is caring for someone or returning after bereavement.
- Preparing customer-facing or care staff for conversations about death and grief.
- Understanding practical flexibility, boundaries and referral pathways.
Workplace education is tailored information and facilitated learning. It is not clinical training, therapy, crisis response, legal advice or a substitute for an organisation's workplace-health, safety and employee-support responsibilities.
An experienced and human approach
Knowledge that connects policy, practice and lived experience.
Damien Hudson, BPsySc, is a thanatologist whose work brings together death education, grief counselling, psychological knowledge, funeral care, family support and practical experience across the whole course of dying, death and bereavement.
Sessions are designed to be clear without becoming clinical, honest without being unnecessarily confronting and useful without requiring participants to disclose personal experiences.
Information can be adapted to the knowledge of the group, the language used within an organisation and the situations participants are most likely to encounter.
Planning a session
A clear proposal and fixed quote before anything is booked.
An initial scoping conversation is free. It establishes the audience, purpose, subject, delivery format, location, group size and the outcome the organiser is seeking.
Looking for upcoming public sessions? Current announcements are shared through The Death Guide's social channels rather than maintained as a dated website calendar.
If urgent help is needed
The Death Guide is not an emergency or 24-hour crisis service.
If life is in danger, someone may act on thoughts of suicide or urgent medical assistance is needed, call Triple Zero (000).
Begin with the audience and purpose
Discuss a workshop or presentation.
When enquiring, it helps to include the organisation, audience, subject or intended outcome, preferred format, location, approximate group size, timing and whether a particular event or concern has prompted the request.
Telephone enquiries: 10am–3pm Monday–Friday. Email enquiries may be sent at any time.