Events

CALENDAR

Speaking Engagements

  • Conferences, symposiums, webinars, communities/community centers, libraries, places of worship, university classes, retreats, pre/post-conference workshops, adult education, healthcare organizations, etc.

Topics:

  • “Introduction to Death Journaling: Planning, Preparing, and Processing”
  • The Role and Scope of a Doula: “Tenets of Doula Care”
  • “Cultivating Compassion: Beneficial Tools for Challenging Times”
  • “Self-Sustenance: Your Inner Resources”
  • Grief Support: StoryListening
  • Being a Friend in Grief: Preparation for Showing up when People are Down
  • Facilitated Book Groups
  • 5-Part “DOULA Heart” Workshop: Dedication to Presence, Open-Mindedness, Understanding with Compassion, Listening Intently, and Allaying Distress
  • Contemplative Doula Retreats

Contact Francesca to schedule a highly customizable event.

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BIO: Francesca Lynn Arnoldy has been a community doula since 2009, supporting people through birth, death, and grief. She is the author of Cultivating the Doula Heart (guidebook), Map of Memory Lane (picture book), and The Death Doula’s Guide to Living Fully and Dying Prepared (interactive workbook). Francesca is a published researcher with the Vermont Conversation Lab and she runs the Death Literacy Educator Course & Community. A trusted thought leader, Francesca has been featured in articles by The New York Times, Fast Company, Newsweek, The Verge, and AARP. She regularly presents on life-and-death topics with hopes of encouraging people to support one another through times of intensity.

Find more details in the “Workshops” page. 

TESTIMONIALS:

Thank you for coming into my Aging: Change and Adaptation class to talk about how you got into End-of-Life Doula work and to share your insights from your experiences. As you know, most of the students in the class are in their first year, and most expressed great hesitancy and resistance to thinking about and talking about dying, death, and bereavement, in advance of your presentation. But after it, I could feel a shift in the room, and as we explored the shift, it was clear that you offered the students a way to think about and be with those who are dying that was compassionate and caring but also real –you didn’t gloss over the challenges of facing death and of being with people in the dying process, but you also showed students the power and potential of being present and real with people at this challenging time. And you took the time to explain how you care for yourself so that you can continue to do this work.
The tenets you offered helped students to understand the ethical as well as practical aspects of doula work. You were great with students’ questions as well –being real with them and also acknowledging how intense the work of a doula can be—emotionally and mentally—and more generally how hard it can be to face the death of a loved one and to think about death and dying at all. In this way, you helped students open up to the idea that dying and death are life processes that, while hard to be present for and to think about at all, also, if we can open to them, offer us an opportunity to engage more fully in life itself. –Jackie Weinstock, PhD she/her, Professor, Human Development and Family Studies, University of Vermont

I attended your [Doula Heart] workshop this past Sunday and I just wanted to send a direct note of appreciation. I so valued the entire program, and its impact on me was a direct result of your skill and spirit as a gifted host and instructor. A bouquet of thanks for all the time, heart, soul, and mind-power you invested in creating such an insightful, enriching, and connective learning experience. You did such an incredible job of presenting at once the more general aspects and tenets of end-of-life doula work and those more personal, nuanced reflections that seem to serve as trail markers of deep meaning that must be met in forging this path of profound (and profoundly needed) service. –Danielle Gasparro, Daylong Workshop Participant & Aspiring Death Doula

I invited Francesca to speak to students about end-of-life and her doula experience in my Psychology of Aging seminar. What a gift Francesca has to talk about death compassionately and frankly, and to do so simultaneously—it was an incredibly moving and empowering class for me and my students. It was one of the first times I heard someone say, without judgment, that it’s important to honor people’s needs while accompanying their loved one through the end of life. My students came away from class with new information about the process of dying and expanded views on what it means to express and honor one’s own and others’ end-of-life wishes. –Christine M. Proulx, PhD she/her, Professor, Department of Counseling, University of Vermont