Become a Certified End-of-Life Practitioner (ELP)

The End of Life Practitioner (ELP) training program is designed to provide a historical, ethical, mythological, psychological, religious/spiritual, and clinical understanding to prepare the participants with the knowledge, skills, and presence needed to address the practical, heuristic, psycho-social, and spiritual dimensions of dying.

End-of-Life Practitioner (ELP) Training

Gain the knowledge, skills, and presence you’ll need to address the practical, heuristic, psycho-social and spiritual dimensions of dying.

Who Should Take the ELP Training?

We offer resources for all who feel called to embrace life through honoring death from front line nurses, social workers, clinicians, clinical leaders, therapists, home and family caregivers, to death doulas and aspiring doulas, healing arts professionals, hospice, and palliative care volunteers. If you are dedicated to transforming the environment around care for those with serious illness and those who are dying, this training is for you.

Training Benefits

Receive Credits

Upon completion of the program, you will be certified by The HeartWay as an End-of-Life Practitioner and have also gained all the skills necessary to also provide Death Doula Services. Continuing Education credits will also be available for MFTs, LPCCs, and/or LCSWs as well as Nurses. This is going to be an extraordinary training and experience. By taking this training and facing your own fears and mortality, and then by helping others do the same, you will be making a significant contribution to the evolution of your own being as well as helping others embrace life through honoring death. We hope you can join us! Shared with love and compassion, Dr. Deerheart.

About this Course

We champion an approach to care that is compassion-focused and relationship-centered and address both personal and professional development through experiential learning and pragmatic application.

Two-Level Course

Each course level is designed to help you develop greater clinical competencies, strengthen your capacity for compassionate service, and enhance spiritual development. Both levels include reading and written assignments, quizzes, and case reviews.

Level One Course Schedule

Sept 21–24, 2023
Oct 27–29, 2023
Nov 17–19, 2023
8:30am-5:30pm PST
8:30am-5:30pm PST
8:30am-5:30pm PST
online
online
online

Level Two Course Schedule

April 18–22, 2024
May 17-19, 2024
June 7–9, 2024
8:30am-5:30pm PST
8:30am-5:30pm PST
8:30am-5:30pm PST
In-Person
online
online

student testimonials

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The course feels like a deep immersion of the self–a guided journey of personal awareness and discovery, framed in a loving and supportive community.

Kelly Schreiber

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I have learned to fall in love with death in such a holistic way and now feel empowered with the tools to walk people through that side of themselves as both their ally and their guide.

Lisa Stuhley

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The journey through this course brought me to new levels of self understanding, the grief process, and death and dying, beyond what I knew possible.

Maggie Engel

Level One Course Registration

Fall Enrollment For Level I 2023 is OPEN!

Special Guest Presenters

Dr. Deerheart has invited special guest presenters to offer their in-depth knowledge and expertise from their fields to further enrich the ELP Level Two program.

Dr. Dan Vicario, M.D.

Medical and Integrative Oncologist

Special Guest

Details Coming Soon!

The HeartWay Scholarship Program was established primarily to support students who show promise of making significant contributions to the field of end-of-life care and/or to the understanding of the role of End-of-Life Practitioners in the medical model of end-of-life care.

The multidisciplinary Study of death

The training utilizes several learning modalities including didactic and self-directed learning, inquiry, case reviews, examination, peer-to-peer learning, case study, reflective practices, and developing the awareness of professional responsibility.

The study of death is unavoidably multidisciplinary. Accordingly, contributions from medicine, the humanities, and the social sciences are all found here in their relevant contexts.

This training is an important source of learning and information for those who are dedicated to transforming the environment around care of those with serious illness and those who are dying. Each module is designed to develop essential clinical competencies, strengthen an individual's capacity for compassionate service, and enhance personal spiritual development. We expand upon the conventional medical model's approach to care by offering content not generally addressed in most clinician's training.

The student will be trained for a scope of practice that includes end of life counseling, end of life care, and to act as a bridge between hospices, palliative care, caregivers, families and end of life patients with the intention of creating sovereignty, compassion, and the highest quality of life and death. Students will be competent in advocating, counseling, end of life care (Death Doula Skills), and practices (vigil, end of life rituals, yoga nidra graceful transitions) to help ease the challenges that arise with dying.

This ELP Training program, is a two-level/six month, intended for front line nurses, social workers, clinicians, clinical leaders, educators, home and family caregivers, death doulas (aspiring), healing arts professionals, hospice and palliative care volunteers, and all who are called to embrace life thru honoring death.

This program qualifies for 75 hours of continuing education credits for MFTs, LPCCs, and/or LCSWs as well as approved provider approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing.

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