We bring complementary expertise that creates a uniquely qualified facilitation team. Christa is a licensed funeral director and certified death educator who became passionate about death literacy after losing a student. She has extensive experience in advance care planning, green burial practices, and helping individuals and organizations develop healthier relationships with death and dying. Her background includes formal training in grief counseling and years of supporting families through loss.

Megan is a trained ritual designer and ceremony facilitator who specializes in workplace transitions and life passages. She has personal experience navigating workplace grief, including recurrent miscarriages and family illness while trying to maintain professional responsibilities. This deeply informs her understanding of how loss shows up in organizational settings. She’s facilitated grief ceremonies for organizations including Lululemon, iilo Creative Alliance, B Halfmoon and Vancouver Hospice Society, and holds certifications in ritual design and trauma-informed grief support.

Together, we combine death education, grief counselling principles, ritual design expertise, and lived experience of workplace loss. We’re trained in creating brave spaces, understanding trauma responses, and knowing how to hold space for difficult emotions while maintaining professional boundaries. Our approach is informed by both evidence-based practices and years of hands-on experience supporting individuals and organizations through transition.

We offer both in-person and virtual workshop options to meet your team’s needs and preferences. For in-person workshops, we’re based in Vancouver, BC and can come to your workplace or meet at a location of your choosing within the Greater Vancouver area. We find that in-person sessions often create deeper connection and more powerful ritual experiences, especially for the hands-on elements like our symbolic object work.

For clients outside of Vancouver, we’re happy to travel to your location with additional travel expenses (flights, accommodation, and meals) added to the workshop fee. We’ll provide a detailed travel quote based on your location.

Our virtual workshops are equally engaging and interactive, hosted either on our platform or yours (Zoom, Teams, etc.). While the format is different, we’ve adapted all our key elements—including the ritual design lab and reflective exercises—to work beautifully in virtual settings. Virtual participants also receive 30-day recording access for ongoing reference and team development.

We begin each workshop by establishing that there’s no ‘right’ way to grieve and that different cultural and religious traditions offer valuable wisdom. Our ritual design work is intentionally adaptable—we teach principles and frameworks that can be customized to fit your organization’s diverse needs rather than prescribing specific ceremonies. Participants learn to create rituals that can accommodate multiple faith traditions, secular approaches, and varying comfort levels with spiritual practices.

We also address how organizations can support employees whose grief practices may differ from dominant cultural norms—whether that’s time off for specific mourning periods, dietary considerations during grief, or understanding that some cultures have very different approaches to discussing death and loss. The goal is building cultural competency alongside grief literacy.

This is completely understandable; many leaders initially worry that addressing grief will be too emotional, time-consuming, or outside their role. We often start by reframing this as essential leadership competency and risk management. The reality is that grief is already impacting your workplace whether you acknowledge it or not, showing up as decreased productivity, increased sick days, higher turnover, and team dysfunction.

Research shows that employees experiencing unacknowledged grief are significantly more likely to leave their jobs, make mistakes, or struggle with focus and decision-making. When leaders don’t know how to respond to loss, they often avoid the person entirely, creating isolation exactly when support is most needed. This approach actually costs more than providing appropriate support.

We help skeptical leaders understand that addressing grief isn’t about becoming therapists or creating ‘touchy-feely’ workplaces. It’s about developing practical skills for inevitable situations: knowing what to say when someone’s parent dies, how to support a team member through divorce, or how to help your organization process major changes. These are core leadership competencies in any human workplace. We focus on practical tools, clear boundaries, and measurable outcomes that even the most analytically-minded leaders can appreciate.

Preparing your team thoughtfully makes a significant difference in workshop engagement and outcomes. We recommend starting with transparent communication about why you’re offering this workshop and what to expect. Frame it as professional development that builds essential leadership skills rather than crisis response, unless you are indeed responding to specific loss.

We suggest sending a brief overview 1-2 weeks ahead that explains the workshop’s practical focus—that this is about building workplace competency, not personal therapy. Let people know the experience will include interactive elements, small group discussions, and some reflective exercises, but emphasize that all participation is voluntary and there’s no pressure to share personal experiences.

It’s helpful to acknowledge that some team members might feel hesitant or wonder if this is appropriate for work settings. We find it reassuring when leaders share why they believe these skills matter for your organization’s culture and effectiveness. If possible, have leadership model openness by briefly sharing why this matters to them—not personal grief details, but why they want to build this capacity as leaders.

We also recommend ensuring people know they can step out if needed, that there will be breaks, and that the focus is on professional skill-building. If anyone has concerns about the content, encourage them to reach out to us directly so we can address specific worries beforehand.