The Space between the words
sept 24, 2025 @ 1:00 PM
Category a - 1 cec

Summary of the session.

Honouring What’s Unsaid, Weaving What’s True, and Holding Grief with Grace

It’s a session created to support both seasoned and newer professionals in this ever-evolving landscape where grief is showing up in more complex, layered, and unexpected ways.

Rather than add more to your team’s already full plates, this workshop offers three gentle, intuitive tools they can fold right into how they already show up with families. The goal is to offer “ah-ha” moments sprinkled with empowerment through unique tools and affirming approaches that prove to make a profound difference. 

Here’s what we’ll explore:

·       The Echo of the Unspoken™
For when grief doesn’t come with words. We’ll look at how to respond to pauses, glances, and the quiet ache beneath the surface. The cadence of a conversation, learning when to lead or when to follow offers invaluable texture at the right moment.

·       The Timeline Tapestry™
How to invite the small but powerful stories—the Saturday routines, the kitchen smells, the quirks that made someone unforgettable.  It’s invaluable when a family learns even more about their loved one through a simple curious question.

·       The Permission Slip™
Because not all grief looks like silence and tears. This tool helps your team hold space for the full emotional spectrum.  As we know, there is no cookie cutter approach.  Navigating the kaleidoscope of guilt, relief, anger, detachment and even joy is a language of its own. When a family feels understood, even guided, they will also feel seen and safe.  Having agency in ones own grief journey is powerful, and this is a lasting gift the Funeral Director can provide to them.

Presenter Kelly Meloche :
is an international keynote speaker, funeral celebrant, and creator of the World Class Celebrant™ coaching program. A graduate of The Speaker Lab, she is also certified through Hospice’s No One Dies Alone program.

Kelly is a proud published author of Leaving Your Light On… Inspirational Stories of Unforgettable Lives and serves couples as a licensed wedding officiant. Her background in media communications and tactical-communications training helps her teach clear, compassionate dialogue to funeral professionals.

Her success as a grassroots entrepreneur has been featured in the Toronto Star, National Post, Global’s 16 x 9, and the podcast Healthcare Elsewhere.

In her spare time, you can find Kelly with her family, finding new trails with her Golden Retriever Piper or having fun on the Pickleball court!

funeral professional peer support
September, 2025 @ 1:00 PM
Category B - 1 cec

Summary of the session.
Participants will be introduced the mission, values and aims of Funeral Professional Peer Support as helpful way of providing mental health support to those who work in the funeral services profession.  The presentation will cover the available services for any person working in the Funeral Services Profession, including other allied helping services that involve death care.  FPPS is a not for profit service aimed at increasing knowledge and mental health awareness among the funeral services profession.  We currently support FSP's in Canada, the USA and in Kenya.  For funeral home whose mental health or wellness programs are limited because of costs or lack of resources, FPPS can help provide another buffer against the stress and impact of death and grief labour.  Join two of our members of the Management Team and Board of Directors as they open a dialogue about peer support services and other initiatives FPPS is bringing to the members of the funeral services profession

Presenters: 
Andrea Grieg, FD, CFSP:  Nova Scotia Funeral Director, Embalmer and part time Instructor with Nova Scotia Community College, Kingstec Campus (Online Allied Health FSE Program), Management Team of FPPS, she is also host of the Death Talk Canada Podcast.  She works for Middleton Funeral Home, in Middleton, Nova Scotia

Dwight Thompson, MSW RSW RMFT-S, is a Registered Social Worker/Marriage and Family Therapist with Ottawa Psychotherapy Services, Ottawa, ON.  He works as a board member with FPPS.  Dwight was formerly licensed as a funeral director in Nova Scotia and Ontario.  He is the Director of Veterans Services, and manager of the Funeral Service Professional Mental Health Program through Ottawa Psychotherapy Services.  

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