Awen is a doula, a storykeeper, a pagan priestess and independent celebrant based in the West Midlands.  She has always held a vision of being like a wise woman of times past, supporting her community at the beginning of life and also at its end. She believes that life is to be celebrated.  Awen hopes to open up the conversation around death and dying within our families and our communities, to bring love back to the end of life.
@wyldmagpie

Paintings in Hospitals, the charity Ben leads, uses the visual arts to support patients, carers, families and communities across the UK. Today they work in any type of health and social care site – from day centres, care homes to hospices, working with carers, staff and service users to use visual arts to make sites supporting end of life care more compassionate and human. Paintings in Hospitals have also hosted a number of projects discussing, exploring and celebrating both life and death in the Menier gallery, including a ‘Death Café’. Visual arts can empower and help people communicate feelings about dying more easily and expressively, opening up dialogue about the past and the future. Paintings in Hospitals can help any type of palliative care site through our art loans and creative activities, so do get in touch if would like to know more.
@highstreetben

Chantal, the Grief Ambassador, is the creator as well as the designer, writer, speaker, grief advocate, and space holder of Grieve Me Alone. Chantal is the main voice on the Grieve Me Alone podcast which features radically honest thoughts, feelings, and stories involving grief. Chantal is also the creative mind behind the writing and designs of one of the most unique grief-related merchandise lines on the market today.
www.grievemealone.com
@grievemealone

Chloe is an educator, organizer, and spiritual caregiver. She’s spent the last ten years designing and facilitating immersive, transformative programs for young people and adults. She holds an Ed.M in Specialized Studies–focusing on Transformative Experiences–from Harvard University and a B.A. in Religion from Carleton College. She is currently studying towards rabbinic ordination.

After her dad died suddenly of an aortic aneurysm in 2017, she felt called to grief work and trained as a chaplain at UCSF Hospital, where she journeyed alongside folks who were ill and dying and their families. She currently works with a team of organizers, chaplains, and young adults who have experienced significant losses to run the COVID Grief Network, a mutual aid initiative connecting young adults grieving the illness or death of someone to COVID-19 to free grief support and a community that knows what it’s like.
www.covidgriefnetwork.org

John is Director of the Bereavement Service at York St John University Counselling and Mental Health Centre and a visiting fellow of the University, where he conducts grief counselling research. He is author of Supporting People through Loss and Grief: An Introduction for Counsellors and other Caring Practitioners, published by Jessica Kingsley. His book The Simple Guide to Grief will be published shortly. John also plays drums in a rock band.
@JWilsonOnline
www.johnwilsononline.org