Omni Kitts-Ferreira
My name is Omni Kitts-Ferreira. I am the Director of Education with INELDA, which stands for, as Lauryn said, the International End of Life Doula Association. I’m here to tell you a little bit about what end of life doulas are, what that role is, how it might support you, and then some workshops and offerings, even a directory that we have at INELDA that might be a useful tool for you all to have. A little bit about INELDA. We are a member-based nonprofit. We have been organized for about 10 years, which is really exciting. We are one of the oldest and largest end of life doula training organizations. And our vision is really, it’s a big vision, but we really want, and support ways in which anyone can have accessible, equitable and compassionate death care that affirms them, so that when they die, they feel a sense of self, they feel that their autonomy has been honored, and there is dignity in their death. We do this in a number of ways, but primarily we train end of life doulas. We teach anybody how to support folks as they journey towards end of life. And being a doula is a unique role. We are not part of the family. We are not part of the medical team, and so we stand in a space that really is truly, truly for the support of the dying person, and also adjacently, their circle of care. So whoever they define as their inner circle, their people, their family. We also work with different facilities, clinical spaces, and we work to integrate doulas into healthcare models, to really broaden the way in which people are cared for at end of life, and to address some of the systemic gaps in health care that exist and that have existed for a long time. I do like to show our team, because we are a really multi-faceted team. We have folks who come from backgrounds of nursing, chaplaincy, social work, some are volunteer coordinators at hospices, educators. We have people from many different wheelhouses, and all of this is supportive, because anyone can be a doula. And really truthfully, there is a point in all of our lives where we step into the loss of someone that means a lot to us. Even if we are not trained doulas, each of us in our lives, we face folks who die, we lose the people closest to us, and so we really do believe that an education around end of life and how to support people in that space is important for anyone and everyone. Everyone can do this. Here is our definition of what an end of life doula is, and I’m going to stop my slides in a few moments, just to connect more personally with you. But we define a doula as a non-medical companion. I like the word guide, but guide also has this feeling as if we are leading the way, and that is not true. The person who is dying, the person who is facing a terminal illness, they are the driver of the process. We have some knowledge about end of life, and so we really walk alongside people. We work to understand what their preferences and desires are, and then we help codify that. We help communicate that. We can sometimes be an echo for the things that are most important to you. We support the self determination and the autonomy of the person dying. So what does that mean? That means we trust you. We trust that you know what is best for you at end of life and throughout the decision making. We start with what you know to be true, what you are asking to have, and then we work to amplify that, to create as many resources and supports for you and for your circle of care to move through this journey and this process of end of life as easily as possible. I kind of just said this, but I think it’s important to say I am also a hospice nurse, and I see I see folks every day, their families around them, and I find a lot of times that even if they were expecting this, they are often unprepared. And there are many spaces in which, when someone is dying, they no longer can make the choices for themselves. They can’t speak out what they really like, what they want. And then you see that fall to the family, and you you see it fall to their decision makers, but they haven’t had the conversations ahead of time. And so then they’re making decisions, really, without knowing what their loved one wanted or wants. And so that’s a hard place. So when you bring a doula into your life, that can be way before we are at end of life. We can do this when we’re young. We can do this when we are not living with disease, or if we are living with disease, doulas can just hold space for you to talk about the things that are most important to you whenever you come to your end of life. And so we really help not just the person dying, but as we have those conversations, it supports the whole unit, so that when you arrive in those places, the family goes, “Oh, we have had this talk, I know what they want here,” and that takes some burden off of them that they don’t feel like they made the wrong choice. We center around the dying person. So again, what you say goes, and that is important, because there will be folks, maybe in your life, who disagree. The doula is not there to disagree, to convince you otherwise, to sway you in any direction. They are really just there to honor the choices that you make, because this is your journey. No one else gets to make it. Some of the things that doulas do. People ask that all the time. “Say, what do you do?” Well, first and foremost, we’re just with you. We’re like an emotional support animal. We’re not there, again, to convince you, but just to be another person in the room who isn’t telling you what they think you should do. We’re someone just to be present in hard conversations and to be witness to what you’re going through, and that can mean a lot. We hear that. It means a lot to the folks we support. We listen with our full self. We we listen when even things merge, like, “Wow, that change in my prognosis was not expected. What am I going to do now?” Right? We are there in those moments when all the little losses are happening, because the loss doesn’t just happen at end of life in the moment that we pass, it is happening all along the way. So to have someone who witnesses your journey. Is like there to just say, “I see you. I am acknowledging. I am validating that what you are moving through can be really empowering as you move through some really difficult stuff”. We certainly help with end of life planning, so using even some of the resources shared today, we can help scribe those choices. We can gather stories. We can collect some pictures. We can say, what is this picture? And so, utilizing a lot of what is shared, but we can be that person who really works to gather it, codify it, write it down and really help that process emerge. We have a lot of community resources. So as an end of life doula, I have a very rich resource list. I know the laws in my state. I know what types of burial options there are. I know really fun things like, who’s a florist who makes these huge blankets that cover caskets. As a doula, I’m that person who really understands the death care ecosystem of the space that you are inhabiting so that you have a lot of support and creativity in meeting the end of life. We have skills and tools to help with comfort through the process of dying, and this is non-medical but mindfulness exercises, breathing exercises, guided imagery, different ways in which to really help your mind process and move through these different spaces. And certainly we are there to educate. We educate your family. We say it’s okay that breath change is expected. We know that we may see something like this. Just we can do that contextualization, that education piece, which can be very useful for the person who is dying, and then also for their loved ones, especially as as they move closer and closer. So we really just help to navigate this process of end of life. And remember, end of life is not just the moment. It is a vast spectrum. All of us can do advanced care planning, all of us can have these conversations, and so I’m going to share my screen one more time to share something that might be of interest. This is a workshop that we have called Living with Our Dying. I really like this title, because we are all living with our dying, whether we have a prognosis or a diagnosis. We all are living with our dying. We are in that space, and we are not sure when the end is here. And so something we do as doulas all the time, is we create space for you to talk about it. Sometimes it’s really hard just to say, I want to talk about dying, but I don’t want to upset so and so and so and so. The title of this fair is Taboo to To Do, and that really is something that happens around end of life, like, don’t talk about it. It’s okay. You’re going to make it. But guess what? We all don’t make it. We all die, and we really feel like as doulas, it’s okay to talk about it, and in fact, when you talk about it, you start to really understand what is important to you and how you want to live your life now. So this entire workshop is dedicated as a space to anyone who wants to consider their mortality and we use this quote a lot, but Stephen Jenkinson, he says, “Let the news of your death transform you”. And we really find, as we teach people every month about end of life, that when you allow your mortality in, it reflexively reminds you that you are alive now and that there is opportunity in that space. And so this is a great little workshop. It’s three hours just to dive into that and engage with yourself, to be curious and discover with yourself. So for end of life doulas, we have this workshop. And then the last thing that I’ll say is, maybe you want to meet a doula, maybe you want to talk to a doula. So over here on our website, on the bar up here, it says, Find a Doula. And we have a doula directory, and you can search, and hopefully it pops up, but it will you can do proximity search so you can look in your area. I will say that doulas can do stuff online as well, but sometimes it’s really nice to have someone face to face and be actually in the room with you. So it is up to you how you want to do this. We have trained doulas in 56 different countries, we have about 9000 trained doulas, so we have a lot of doulas. So look at this little doula directory and you can find someone that you might just want to start a conversation with. I will put my email in the chat so that you can reach out to me if you have questions or need help navigating our site to find that workshop or a doula, I’m happy to connect you. So thank you for letting me speak.