As a deathcare practitioner, you play a crucial role in supporting families during one of the most challenging times of their lives. Grief is messy and unpredictable, and knowing how to offer compassionate and thoughtful support can make a significant difference. Here are five strategies to help you support grieving families effectively. 1. Forget the Five Stages of GriefElizabeth Kübler-Ross's five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—were based on observations of terminally ill patients. These stages are not universal or linear. Grief is deeply personal and unpredictable, more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book than a roadmap. Your role is to help families begin to navigate their unique journey through grief, and help them take care not to prescribe to a specific path or pattern. 2. Be Awkward, Be VulnerableIt’s normal to feel uncomfortable when supporting someone who is grieving. Avoid using clichés or making unhelpful remarks like, "He's in a better place," or "At least you can have more children." These comments can inadvertently diminish their grief. Instead, acknowledge your discomfort and offer sincere support: "Sometimes it’s hard to know what to say, but I want you to know I’m here for you.” This honesty shows grieving individuals that they are not alone and that their feelings are valid. 3. Offer Grief Support Resources in Your Aftercare ProgramGrief can linger for weeks, months, or even years. As a deathcare practitioner, you can help families find the additional support they need. Keep a list of local resources, such as group counseling or therapy, that may benefit them. Websites like ForGrief.com connect grieving individuals with a range of support options, including downloadable resources, Grief Chats™ with professionals, community support, and online courses tailored to their needs. Share these resources on your website, via your social media outlets, or as part of your aftercare program. Providing these resources shows that you care about their long-term well-being. 4. Encourage Grief BreaksGrieving is emotionally and physically exhausting, and people may feel guilty about taking breaks from their grief. Encourage them to take "grief breaks” during the funerary activities. Similar to recess for kids, activities like a brief walk or simply few moments away from the events can help a person who is grieving to recharge. Remind your families that taking time to rest does not minimize their grief nor encourage denial. Instead, it helps them maintain their strength to continue their grieving process. 5. Take Care of YourselfWorking with grieving families daily can lead to death and grief overload. To be at your best for your families, it's crucial to care for yourself. Use resources to assess your own burnout level and ensure you’re getting the support you need. Taking vacations, exploring hobbies outside the deathcare and grief space, and making time for exercise are all beneficial. During working hours, check in with your staff after particularly challenging arrangements, encourage regular breaks, and set reminders to stay hydrated. These practices will help maintain your well-being and effectiveness, and help you help those who are grieving. ConclusionRemember, grief has no timeline. In your role, your support means offering compassion and respect, walking the path with those who are grieving, and letting them know they are not alone. You don’t need to have all the answers—your presence and willingness to help are often enough. By employing these strategies, you can make a meaningful difference in the lives of grieving families, providing them with the support and understanding they need during such a difficult time. A deeper dive into how people grieve and aftercare support take the stage at the 106th Annual Cremation Innovation Convention this September 11-13, 2024 in Chicago. In Kelly Manion’s dynamic session, The Power of Human Connection: Elevating Your Grief Support & Aftercare Programs, attendees will learn valuable insights into the diverse way people (including yourself) experience grief, and how you can support them. You’ll also learn how to take your brand to the next level by integrating grief support into your aftercare program to help position your firm as a pillar of support in your community.
See what else we have planned and register for CANA's 106th Convention today!
Learn about the common cyber threats that target small businesses that handle sensitive information and what you can do to prevent them. Suppose you run a small business that handles personal health information (PHI), personally identifiable information (PII), or payment card information (PCI). In that case, you need to be aware of the cybersecurity risks that you face. Cybercriminals are constantly looking for ways to steal, compromise, or destroy your data, and they often target small businesses that have fewer resources and security measures than larger organizations. The cost of a data breach for a small to midsize business (SMB) can be substantial. On average, a data breach costs an SMB around $217,000 per incident per the Garter® Top Trends in Cybersecurity for 2024. This figure includes immediate financial impacts such as legal fees, fines, and remediation costs. However, the hidden costs can be even more significant. For example, the average cost of lost business due to a data breach is $1.52 million. This loss stems from eroded customer trust and the potential exodus of clients, which can be catastrophic for businesses that rely on a loyal customer base. Additionally, operational disruptions, productivity losses, and data restoration costs add to the financial burden. For instance, downtime can cost SMBs an average of $8,000 per hour. Given these high stakes, investing in comprehensive cybersecurity measures is crucial for protecting against the costs and disruptions of a cyberattack. Common ThreatsSome of the most common cyber threats that small businesses face are:
Best PracticesTo reduce the cybersecurity risk for your small business, you should follow these best practices:
In today's digital age, the threat of a personal or business cyberattack looms over all of us. Take a proactive stance against cyber threats and learn how to identify phishing attacks and malware schemes so you will be better prepared to safeguard your data with Lee Hovermale this September.
At CANA’s 106th Annual Cremation Innovation Convention, Lee will present on Cybersecurity Awareness: Recognizing a Threat, and Protecting Your Data. This session will empower you with information you can use to navigate the online world securely and protect yourself and your company. See what else we have planned and register to join Lee in Chicago this September: cremationassociation.org/CANA24
One of the greatest challenges to surviving a suicide death loss and moving forward in one’s grief is the prevalent and damaging stigma that continues to be associated with this cause of death. This stigma is complicated by public misunderstanding of suicide, long-held myths about suicide, and the problematic language used to talk about suicide and the deceased. Moving forward with a suicide death loss is one of the most difficult experiences we may face in our lives, but if we can begin to unpack and understand the roots of the stigma that clings to suicide in our culture, we may become more empowered to challenge them and attain some healing in our personal bereavement. In my own scholarly work on suicide, I have identified what are perhaps the four most common cultural myths that are imposed on survivors of suicide loss, which reinforce stigmas and harm our individual grieving processes. Exposing these attitudes for the myths they are may allow us to better honor our loved ones’ lives while also reinforcing facts over fiction to others who are also affected by suicide. Myth 1: Suicide is always the result of clinical depression.Not all suicide deaths are resultant of what we clinically term “depression.” It is also important to remember that while everyone may feel depressed from time to time, perhaps following the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, the end to a romantic relationship, or other losses, clinical depression is not the same as situational depressed feelings, nor does one necessarily grow out of the other. Today, we must recognize that not all suicide deaths are linked so easily to clinical depression or, even for persons suffering from clinical depression, to that depression alone. Leading to a suicide attempt, there are a multitude of pressures at work on an individual, both social (including cultural, environmental, and interpersonal) as well as psychological (including one’s personal and familial mental health history, one’s losses, and one’s coping mechanisms for responding to suffering and trauma), and often biological (including chronic or life-threatening medical conditions, chemical imbalances, and effects of medications). If your loved one died of suicide, it is natural for you to try to trace the components of their life that may have impacted their suicidality and led to their death. We want answers, and we may think that we need those answers to move on with our lives. Coming to terms with the impossibility of fully answering the question of “why?” is a hard realization, but it can begin to allow you to accept that you will never know fully exactly why the death occurred. Myth 2: The suicide death was a “quick fix” for problems that could easily have been solved.Because suicide continues to be an act surrounded by attempts to place blame, whether on the deceased, his or her family or romantic partner, or the medical community, if we seek less to find an outlet for blame and more to identify contributory forces on the individual, we may recognize that someone who has died of suicide was trapped in their pain and unable to see any other way out of their pain. Suicidal people do not want to die; they want to end their suffering. To treat suicide as a “quick fix” or “easy way out,” as is often done, is a failure to recognize the pain from which our loved one suffered. While we all experience pain, loss, and obstacles in our lives, individuals who die of suicide were not able to respond to their pain in healthy ways – often due to the same biopsychosocial forces that led to their suicidality. After a suicide loss, we might become frustrated by all the options we believe that our loved one had to receive help. We might become angry at them or others for not getting the help that we think could have kept them alive. Recognizing that suicide is the product of a mind that isn’t working right can help us understand that while we can identify objective sources of assistance, in late-stage suicidality, our loved one’s mind genuinely could not see those possibilities anymore. Myth 3: If we talk about suicide, or about our loved one who died of suicide, we may risk becoming suicidal or causing another person to become suicidal.Historically, it was believed that if one spoke openly about the suicide death of a family or community member, they would risk “infecting” themselves or others by presenting suicide as an option. We still see effects of this misguided theory today; for example, we rarely, if ever, see the word “suicide” in an obituary or hear it at a memorial service for one who has died of suicide. Similarly, school communities are divided between communicating effectively with their students about the loss of a student to suicide and remaining fearful of romanticizing the death and presenting it as a possible “way out” for other students. Although this theory has been reexamined over the last decade and the idea that suicide is “infectious” is well on its way to being disproven, the idea that one can contract suicide from another person, as one would a virus or bacterial infection, still circulates in our contemporary culture. We need to resist remaining silent about suicide and our own suicide losses. It is not contagious, and without open and accurate conversations about it, including in memorialization, silence will continue to function as a way of shaming survivors and cultivating more silence around these deaths. The suicide death of your loved one was the endpoint of their unique and extraordinary life, not the totality of their life. They deserve that their pain be acknowledged along with their accomplishments. Additionally, other people living with suicidality need to know that they can break silences about their suffering. Talking about suicide is more likely to lead to those people seeking help rather than suffering in silence. Myth 4: Suicide is an act of cowardice or personal weakness; while everyone feels badly sometimes, suicide is “wrong,” “selfish,” or “weak.”One of the most dangerous ways in which we bar understanding of those who have died of suicide is to treat their means of death as a personal failure. Historically-inherited cultural norms teach members of our society that a person who died of suicide was weak, cowardly, and uncaring about their loved ones. In reality, as the result of many social, psychological, and biological factors that have nothing to do with “giving up” or “choosing death,” suicide is not about cowardice; it isn’t about weakness. Representations of people who die of suicide as being less strong or less caring of others are not only false but harmful to their survivors and to their own legacy. No one asks to become suicidal; no one hopes that suicidality will develop in them, just as no one wishes for a cancer to develop in them. Persons who attempt and die of suicide often report beforehand feeling ambivalent toward life and death, due to their suffering. Many cannot see or understand the impact their death will have on their loved ones, much in the same way that they cannot see options other than suicide in ending their pain. Anyone who lives for any length of time with exacerbating suicidality in a culture that shames suicidality is anything but a coward. The Role of LanguageWhile the above myths are but a few of the many that suicide loss survivors face, sometimes on a daily basis, we also need to confront the ways in which our culture reinforces stigma through the language used to refer to suicide and those who suffer from it. Let’s consider conventional terminology: people say that “John killed himself” or “John committed suicide”; both of these statements show nothing but ignorance for the complexity and devastation of suicidal pain, rendering someone who died of a life-threatening condition a virtual criminal. Within our cultural context, we “commit” crimes – murder, theft, robbery. If we “kill,” our cultural values demand that we ought to be punished. Criminalizing suicide through language is a barrier to understanding the pain of the suicidal individual. Your loved one did not commit a crime; they do not deserve cultural or interpersonal degradation in language. They died of suicide, which is a cause of death that can be acute, chronic, or life-threatening, like many other causes of death. Their death was not an act of free will produced by a healthy mind but a tragic result of complex pain. November 23, 2024 is International Survivors of Suicide Loss Day. To find events and additional resources, or to read and share stories of suicide losses, I encourage you to visit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention’s website at www.afsp.org. 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. Veterans, press 1 when calling. There may be no cause of death more silenced, stigmatized, and misunderstood than a death of suicide. Back by popular demand, Sara Murphy, PhD, FT, takes the stage at CANA's 106th Annual Cremation Innovation Convention this September 11-13, 2024. Dr. Murphy's invaluable session will teach how to differentiate between myths and realities of suicidality, recognize the signs for suicide risk and develop responses to prevent suicide death loss within the profession to better care for ourselves and our colleagues.. See what else we have planned and register to attend: cremationassociation.org/CANA24
Plus, Dr. Sara Murphy and Aaron Pelchat, LCSW, lead an interactive workshop to bring professional education and support of mental health in funeral service professionals. In The Silent Problem: Talking about Mental Health and Funeral Service, attendees will learn about common mental health issues like compassion fatigue and burnout, how to unpack challenges to self-care, and gain tools for improving mental health in themselves and their colleagues. Register for this special pre-Convention workshop alone or add it to your CANA Convention registration.
This post was originally published in the Remembering A Life blog on November 18, 2020.
The national cremation rate has grown steadily and predictably for the last 50 years. Nothing has interrupted this pattern, neither recessions nor a pandemic, at least on the national level. CANA has tracked this national data for more than a century but has collected state level data just for the past 25 years. As we first reported in 2017, cremation growth rates follow a similar pattern that varies by region of the country and some demographic factors. These patterns emerge as S-curves, a common framework in statistics, representing growth in cremation over time. CANA’s consultant, Arvind Singhal, took this research further and created a model that projects cremation rate growth by state through the end of the century. Cremation and death numbers will vary and that's important to track for business planning: case volume influences staffing and capital investments. However, these projected cremation rates – percentages of the total – describe long-term trends. Besides being an interesting intellectual exercise, these predictions can also be useful in business planning. Though, if it seems like science fiction, you would be right. Projecting out further than 5-20 years introduces many demographic and other variables that make the projections less reliable, but still fascinating. CANA's Milestone Report, originally published in 2021, suggests a picture of continued cremation growth in a predictable shape. The Cremation S-CurveS-curves are a line on a graph that starts off rising pretty slowly and then ramps up quickly before eventually leveling off. This shape appears everywhere, often representing an innovation or adoption of new technology. Picture the invention of cars, televisions, or smart phones: just a few early adopters, it catches on and everyone starts using it, then the population that will adopt it does and there’s nowhere to grow. The S-curve looks more like a lazy, stretched S, but is distinct from other growth shapes such as straight-line or stair step. There are five phases to a trend that is depicted as an S-curve:
State Cremation Rate GrowthS-curves describe adoption of a trend or technology. When did cremation stop being a curiosity and start becoming a trend? In 1972. When did cremation become the majority of consumers’ preference? Nationally, the rate topped 50% in 2016—but, of course, it varies state by state. Some states hit the mark even earlier, before 2000, when CANA wasn’t yet collecting state-level data. Our first chart shows when individual states reach 50% cremation rate – reporting existing data or projecting forward. Since this report was first published in 2021, the cremation rate in Arkansas, Virginia and West Virginia have each surpassed 50% as predicted by the chart. By 2033, cremation is predicted to be the preferred form of disposition in every state. For 2023, CANA added a new color to the national heat maps to highlight the six states where the cremation rate is now above 80% – these states also predicted in the chart from 2021. The farther out a projection is, the more room error there is – we can’t account for world events, demographic change, culture shifts, etc. However, CANA statistics predict that more than half of the country will join these early-adopter states and surpass 80% before 2040 – less than 20 years from now. This CANA research shows each state’s projected cremation growth patterns as they reach two milestones: 50% (top) and 80% (bottom) cremation rates. Disposition DisruptionAs we conducted research for this article, we learned that trends are borne from trends. For example, the adoption of personal computers led naturally to smart phones as the next improvement of the technology. Personal computers plateaued when they were integrated into nearly all types of business, personal, and education use. Then smart phones somewhat leapfrogged over computer use in some areas of the world and in some professions. Turning to death care, it will be interesting to observe how new and existing forms of disposition may grow out of the adoption of cremation. Is alkaline hydrolysis an S-curve building on top of cremation? What about natural organic reduction? Only time will tell. For now, these new forms of disposition are difficult to track. That’s because half of the states offering alkaline hydrolysis do not differentiate between AH and flame cremation. If the legalization trend continues to redefine cremation to include AH and NOR, it will continue to be difficult to track these dispositions separately from flame cremation. Are You Ready?Are you persuaded? Now’s the time to embrace cremation. CANA has the tools to support your own growth as the cremation rate grows around you. Further ReadingThese blogposts are just skimming the surface of all the knowledge that the CANA network has to offer, the decades of research and reports, and generations of expertise in cremation success.
EducationReady to get to work? CANA’s Online Education Courses are on-demand and filled with practical takeaways you can put to work right away. Here are a few to consider.
This original research from CANA was first published in 2021 in Volume 57, Issue 4 of The Cremationist. Access to CANA research and magazine and archives are resources available exclusively to members. Not a member yet? Your firm can join for just $495 and gain the benefit of more than a century of cremation expertise.
CANA Research takes the stage at the 106th Annual Cremation Innovation Convention this September 11-13, 2024 in Chicago. CANA President Robert Hunsaker will share how The Answer is in the Numbers and identify strategies to remain profitable in today's market. See what else we have planned and register to attend the CANA Convention!
Like the CANA's Annual Cremation Statistics Report, the statistical analysis and projections in this post were conducted by Arvind Singhal of Singhal LLC. Arvind earned his Bachelor of Engineering from IIT, Roorkee, Master of Science in Engineering from Western Michigan University, and an MBA from Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. In February, I attended CANA’s 2024 Symposium focusing on green practices. There were several presenters and vendors who provided information and products covering embalming, green burial, alkaline hydrolysis, and natural organic reduction. Everyone brought their best attitudes and willingness to learn about new ways to consider how we serve our families. As the presentations continued, it was clear that many people in the room had strong preferences and could argue clearly on behalf of the methods they preferred. It occurred to me while listening to these discussions that we have to have something to be against in order to have something that we support. Now, isn’t that the truth for humanity throughout our collective experience? In every story there is a bad guy and a good guy. A right way and a wrong way. This is how countries, political parties, religious denominations, cults, and, even, sports teams gain their followers. We’re number one and everyone else is a loser. Enemies in Funeral ServiceIn the 60’s Jessica Mitford was the objective of our collective anger. In her book The American Way of Death, she pulled the curtain back on the practices of the day. Some of her assumptions and accusations were inflated and unfair. Some of her statements were correct and on point. This exposé that outlined many problematic business practices drew the attention of the FTC and funeral service was put on notice that someone was watching. So, then we had a second point of pain and an enemy that we could all agree on. That meddling FTC that makes our lives so difficult. And then, along came cremation. Now this was something threatening that we could all rally against. What do you mean that you do not want to embalm the body, buy a casket and a vault and a burial plot? This is what we do. This is our entire business model. This is how we survive. So, for another two decades (and, for some much longer) many funeral professionals were less than engaged with the cremation family. The famous professional shrug and eye roll as we referred to the request as “just a cremation.” We hid the urns in a closet and only brought them out when we had to. As cremation continued to increase and it became clear that it was going nowhere, many funeral professionals learned to embrace and adapt and have successful businesses serving the cremation customer. But, if you listen closely when a group of funeral directors get together, there is still that collective sigh as they remember the good ol’ days. Just as we thought that we had figured out how to sleep with that enemy, along came green burial. “What? What kind of hippy dippy, tree hugging stuff is this? ”And, of course, Jewish and Islamic families all over the country gently reminded us that they have been honoring their dead in this manner for 2000 years. And this is when the enemies became divided. For those who were promoting and encouraging the natural disposition choices, formaldehyde and caskets and fuel-based cremation became the enemy. Bad for the environment. Bad for practitioners. Bad for the land. For those whose business practices relied on embalming or cremation, green burial became a threat to their established models and frustrating in the limitations of offering options. “Sure, I am happy to support a family’s wishes, but how do I find a cemetery that accepts natural burial? Or dealing with green-identified cemeteries that won’t allow burial of an embalmed body which means that families cannot be buried together? And what does green burial mean? A wicker casket? A shroud? Formaldehyde-free embalming? So confusing. Perhaps we can just ignore it and hope it goes away.” In the last decade, the landscape has gotten even more crowded with the introduction of alkaline hydrolysis focusing on the enemy: flame-based cremation. So much better to utilize water and sodium hydroxide and not pollute the air or use large quantities of fuel. At this writing, twenty states have legalized it, indicating a lag in professional support and urgency for making this available for families who would like to have that choice. Why create yet something else that we must deal with? And then, in 2019, natural organic reduction came on the scene. You could feel the collective gasp all over the country. “What? Another option? Turning bodies into soil? A truck load of remains? Are you kidding me?" At this writing, nine states have legalized this process and much of the pushback has come from religious and funeral professionals. “We’ve never done it this way before and it just doesn’t feel right. ”The best way to bring folks together is to give them a really good enemy. Are we the enemy?Personally, I am a fan of all of the above. I have had the privilege of working with such talented and dedicated professionals in all of these fields – embalming, cremation, green/natural, alkaline hydrolysis, and natural organic reduction. I am completely convinced that their life’s work has been focused on serving families in dignified and honoring ways and of supporting a funeral practice that serves the community. My question is – Why does anything have to be the enemy? Why have we been so resistant to accepting and enthusiastically embracing ALL of the options? Why must one thing be bad in order for our preference to be good? Clearly each method has pros and cons that must be considered, but there is no one method that owns all the pros nor one that is inherently bad. Why can’t we open up those doors and become proficient and conversant in every option that is allowed in our states? Why are we not having full and informative conversations with professionals, law makers, religious and lay communities as we consider what it means to take care of a person’s final disposition and honoring those wishes? What message are we sending to families who are seeking the best alternative that fits them and their lifestyles and convictions when we refuse to be the professional experts in all the ways we take care of bodies? Perhaps it is time to put down our We’re Number One foam finger and consider ourselves part of the death care team with everyone pulling in the same direction. Perhaps the best way to bring everyone together is not to create an enemy but to create a vision of progressive inclusion and expansive imagination. In that scenario, no one has to be the enemy. Everyone can be the good guy. Glenda Stansbury takes the stage at CANA's 106th Annual Cremation Innovation Convention this September 11-13, 2024. She'll talk about the value of listening and being open to all perspectives and responding to the needs of our communities. See what else we have planned and register to attend: cremationassociation.org/CANA24
This post excerpted from an article of the same name, originally appearing in Dodge Magazine Spring 2024 Volume 116 No. 2.
The loss of talent is one of the biggest challenges organizations face. In a competitive job market, managers can help ensure stability by intentionally creating a culture that people will be more likely to stay in. And, contrary to what is often assumed, it does not have to cost a lot of money. Here are 10 ways managers can create a culture people will want to join and thrive in:
Denise Reid and Martha Webb-Jones provide consultation on Human Resources policies and processes through Raven Plume Consulting. The mission of Raven Plume is to change the way people think about funeral service by sharing knowledge and expertise with funeral home and crematory professionals, clients, and the public. With Cremation Strategies & Consulting, part of Raven Plume Consulting, you can get a discount in developing your SOP Manual and reduce liability, improve employee training, and ensure operations are done correctly, efficiently, and consistently. Available free to CANA Members, the Crematory Management Program provides step-by-step instructions to build a Standard Operating Procedures Manual with the help of experts. Not a member? Learn more about why CANA keeps growing!
On Leap Day 2024, CANA joined Wake Forest Law Review for an opportunity that comes around even more rarely than February 29: this gathering of thought leaders from across the death care spectrum — practitioners, reformers, lawyers, advocates, and more--to talk about the biggest legal and regulatory topics in the profession. While the Law Review hosts similar events annually, the topic varies and this happened to be a banner year to talk about changes to death care. The goal was to develop scholarly content and discussion on legal and regulatory topics in death care. This was a law symposium after all, and there are myriad legal questions related to disposition, licensure and the Funeral Rule that are in the news--and sometimes in dispute--right now. If you were unable to attend in person or via livestream, recordings are available. Additionally, the Symposium will be covered in an issue of the Wake Forest School of Law Review to be published in fall 2024. This post will be updated with a link at that time. The result of our day together was discussion that covered familiar, progressive ideas from the profession and new takeaways from reformers. Panelists were passionate about their topics and outright disagreements surfaced around licensure and the Funeral Rule, but arguments were thoughtfully presented and everyone walked away with new ideas to consider. When I reflect on my involvement in planning, implementing and presenting during the Symposium, I have identified a number of takeaways and questions that remain. Let this post capture some of those thoughts and questions and serve as fodder for future conversation. New Ideas with Roots in Funeral HistoryCaitlin Doughty served as keynote for the day and delivered a thoughtful, researched and provocative assessment the historical influences on the modern funeral profession and death-curious community. I won’t attempt to summarize her talk in this post, but invite you to listen to the recording. Funeral service as a profession has been stubbornly gendered since its inception in the mid-19th century. It was a gentleman’s profession that embraced embalming and developed many of the customs and traditions that endure today. There are parallels to this trend within cremation and in cemeteries. Women have always been involved in caring for the dead but, until the last decade, were not well represented among licensed funeral directors and embalmers or cemeterians. Professional funeral service is now proving attractive to women, and 80% of new mortuary school and funeral service graduates are female in 2024. When other professions, such as teaching, nursing, librarianship, have shifted from largely male to female, it has resulted in lower pay or a diminished reputation for its workers. There is such a shortage of licensed funeral directors currently that this seems unlikely, but the danger remains. While many women enter traditional mortuary science and funeral service programs as students, many others are carving out their own studies and career paths to become death doulas, death educators and consumer advocates. Both groups cite leaders like Caitlin as inspiration to embrace caring for the dead. Can we, the death care profession, provide a career path for new workers to satisfy their impulse to serve? Irreconcilable Differences?It may seem counterintuitive that funeral reformers and practitioners could find common ground, but we managed to agree on some of the elements of the most controversial topics in death care today. LicensureIf the more than 700 registered attendees at Wake Forest, in the overflow room, and on the livestream are any indication, interest in death care is high. But for those uninterested or unwilling to pursue licensure as a funeral director, a career path is unclear. The profession is experiencing a workforce crisis. The number of new licensed funeral directors has held steady in recent years, but that is not sufficient to offset the higher rate of baby boomer retirees and, eventually, baby boomer deaths. Discussions during the Symposium continued to come back to this topic and raised questions without easy answers: Do licensure requirements accommodate and support new dispositions and prevent scandals? The assertion from reformers and some practitioners is that the current licensure system is somehow insufficient. That is true in the sense that criminals will ignore laws and regulations and will be stopped by enforcement. Licensure and regulations are designed to create barriers to entry and establish minimum levels of competency to promote public safety. This is a good thing, but also up for interpretation as to the nature of those barriers and definitions of competency. The path to legalization of new forms of disposition is not without barriers, but our elected officials and the funeral profession are responding positively to consumer interest in greener technologies. End-of-life care is evolving, are current laws and regulations keeping up? Why is it important for a funeral director to also be an embalmer? Roughly half the states allow one license for a funeral director and another for embalmers, while the other half require a funeral director to do both to be licensed. There was much discussion about “ready to embalm” requirements, including licensure and specific equipment at establishments, that raise costs for businesses and barriers for entry into the profession for new professionals and companies. For businesses that offer embalming, it is logical to have trained professionals, equipment and facilities to offer embalming. But for an increasing number of establishments that offer direct cremation, arrangements only, or new forms of disposition, a requirement to be “ready to embalm” runs counter to their business practice. Is discussing funeral arrangements a matter of free speech or consumer protection? A recent lawsuit in California and an ongoing lawsuit in Indiana raise this question in relation to the work of death doulas. The answer will impact the future of licensure for funeral professionals as well as career paths for death doulas and educators. Can we find a way to meet in the middle and identify a path to employment for death curious people, as well as future funeral directors, embalmers and cemeterians? MoneyThe Funeral Consumers Alliance is dedicated to lowering costs for consumers and is promoting revision of the Funeral Rule to require online price posting to accomplish this goal. Funeral professionals remember that the original Funeral Rule implementation did not result in lower prices overall and any new Rule provisions or revisions are unlikely to do so. More regulation increases costs for businesses that are passed on to consumers. Funeral poverty is a real concern and any funeral home owner knows it as they scan through their accounts receivable. What the public does not see is the common practice of discounting services for veterans, children or victims of crimes. There is a larger societal pattern of lower savings and insufficient financial planning for retirement or common emergencies. If the average American does not have enough savings or credit to pay for a flat tire, will they be able to afford an unexpected death? This reality was on full display during the pandemic and resulted in discussions about potential solutions. Dr. Victoria Haneman shared the strongest argument for preplanning and preneed that I have ever heard from industry insurance and trust professionals. Dr. Haneman then laid out her proposed solutions, centered around income tax and savings incentives. These ideas are fascinating and likely to proceed as expansions of HSA or 529 plans. The NFDA has sponsored a bill that has attracted bipartisan support and would represent progress toward addressing saving for end of life expenses. Public TrustThe Funeral Consumers Alliance asserts that the funeral profession is routinely harming consumers via high prices and confusing practices; however, there is little evidence of harm as measured by complaint volume at federal or state level or via consumer ratings and feedback. Funeral practitioners have high online ratings and positive customer feedback survey results. The FTC identified funeral related complaints to be #29 in their rankings. This disparity in experiences is hard to reconcile, but we must continue to communicate the value of funeral service. Posting pricing online is a current practice for many practitioners, and may soon be required by the Federal Trade Commission. No one likes to be told what to do or how to run their businesses, hence the opposition to this requirement. Practitioners also know that price posting alone will not increase consumer knowledge about end-of-life planning or make it easier. Price is only part of the equation. When choosing an end-of-life provider (death doula or funeral director), trust is more important than price for most people. Scandals also undermine public trust. Caitlin Doughty asserted that additional regulation and licensure may not be the solution to avoid scandals as we have seen in recent headlines. She suggested instead that inspections and enforcement of existing laws could have a major impact. This dynamic is playing out in Colorado right now with a bill to require individual licensure under consideration as well as debate around funding enforcement of existing laws. What did we leave out?Whether intentionally or not, we lacked the time to cover every death care topic of interest to participants. We didn’t convene a panel about green burial or burial conservation trusts. These are established dispositions with fewer outstanding legal questions. But are they viable dispositions in the future of death care? Absolutely! We hoped that the Symposium would bring together passionate people who don’t often interact and we succeeded. The following is a quote one participant shared in the post-event evaluation: I appreciate that the symposium included views from the legal community and what I would consider funeral-adjacent professions and organizations. We don't often get outside of ourselves at funeral association classes/meetings/conventions, and at times risk becoming echo chambers. But there is so much to learn from other professional communities. I would love to hear more from professionals in the hospitality industry (which I consider funeral-adjacent, as we're all just creating experiences) that have been transformative in their businesses and industries. Thank you, for creating the opportunity to hear new--and sometimes uncomfortable--perspectives through this symposium. I share this hope that these conversations continue and we satisfy our mutual interests to advance death and end of life care. The Wake Forest Law Review is a student-run organization that publishes five issues annually. The Law Review also sponsors symposia. In 2024, the Symposium arranged their Spring Symposium on The Future of Death Care in America. Through the publication of articles, notes, comments, and empirical legal studies, the Law Review provides the profession with timely evaluations of current problems in the law and serves students as a valuable educational tool. The Spring Symposium was livestreamed and recordings can be watched here with students' publications on the topics to be published soon. When planning the Symposium, we knew that Professor Terry Brock’s research and work on abandoned cemeteries did not fit neatly in the theme, however we recognized that if we don’t study our history, we are destined to repeat it. Look for a future post to CANA's Cremation Logs blog on this interesting and important research.
It’s no secret that consumers’ increasing preference for cremation is impacting the traditional funeral home business model. Because cremation services generally produce lower revenue, many funeral home owners are expanding their product and service offerings. Others are discovering ways to serve the needs of new groups within their communities. As reported in IBISWorld industry research and echoed in the NFDA’s 2023 Cremation & Burial Report, “It is predicted that funeral homes will continue to expand their array of extra services offered to families; increase their focus on niche markets to differentiate themselves; and draw attention to their value-added services, such as … serving groups with diverse cultural and religious preferences.” Cultural differences play a significant role in funeral practices and the better we understand the religious and cultural diversity of our communities, the greater our opportunity to serve those groups. Ask yourself three questions:
Breaking Down Cultural BarriersIn Orange County California, for example, our team at The Omega Society was contacted by a writer for Orange Network, the monthly magazine of the Orange County Japanese American Association. She was writing a story to inform and educate the local Japanese American community to the range of funeral, cremation and burial options available from the Society. Southern California has the largest Japanese American population in North America, and many adhere to the beliefs of the Shinto faith. She told us that in Shintoism, terminal illness, dying and death are considered “impure,” making frank discussions of death and dying very difficult and even taboo. The result is a population with insufficient knowledge of end-of-life care and local resources available to assist them when the need arises. Our Omega Society location leader met with this writer for a tour of our facility and a wide-ranging discussion that included cremation options, costs, the advantages of prepayment, and options for the disposition of cremated remains. The resulting article did a great deal to shed light on this important subject and positioned The Omega Society as a caring local partner with professionals ready to assist the Japanese American community with all their funeral service needs. This is just one example of funeral professionals who are filling unmet community needs and finding new markets among diverse cultural and religious communities. Honoring Buddhist TraditionsLocated 20 miles southeast of downtown Portland, the city of Happy Valley is one of the most diverse communities in Oregon, including an Asian population of more than 22 percent. Our Sunnyside Funeral, Cremation and Memorial Gardens has worked with local Buddhist temples to serve this community for more than 60 years. Buddhists believe that the soul is reincarnated; death is not the end, so it is not to be dreaded. Most Buddhist societies cremate their dead to purify and free the soul, and aid in the attainment of enlightenment -- just as The Buddha himself was cremated. “Although funeral services can vary by sect of Buddhism, all are beautiful, meaningful celebrations in which family members participate over a two-day period,” said Sunnyside General Manager Samantha Haxton. “Common elements include an invocation to the Buddha, offerings of food and flowers, readings from Buddhist scriptures and a procession of monks. The body of the deceased is transported to our crematory on the second day, where final chanting and praying proceed cremation. Some of our Buddhist families choose to permanently memorialize their loved ones by interring their cremated remains at their temple and many are placed at our Sunnyside Memorial Garden near a large statue of Buddha.” Cultural and Religious Diversity are Here to StayThe shift in ethnicities and increasingly diverse funeral traditions across the United States will only accelerate in the years ahead. As funeral professionals, it’s our job to learn about and appreciate the different cultures and religions present in our communities. We need to make ourselves seen in these communities and let families know we are available and ready to serve them in keeping with their unique customs and rituals surrounding death and mourning. Do your research, build relationships and provide support to all segments of your changing community. Differentiating your funeral home by understanding and accommodating all types of funerals will help you remain a trusted service leader for years to come. May is designated as Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month to recognize the contributions and influence of these communities to the history, culture, and achievements of the United States. As experts in service, expanding your cultural IQ not only helps you serve your whole community, but also helps them to know they can turn to you when in need. Take some time in May – and year-round – to learn something new about the people in your community.
Catch CANA and Foundation Partners this week at 2024 ICCFA Annual Convention & Expo for a session on Preserving Celebrations in a Cremation-Centric World!
This post excerpted from an article of the same title published in The Cremationist volume 60, issue 1. Members can read the full article by logging in to the CANA website. Not a member yet? See the full benefits of membership and join today!
Many of us now spend a huge segment of every day engaging with the world online. As we conduct business—paying invoices, registering for continuing education, renewing subscriptions and memberships—we expect our experience to be as hassle-free and user-friendly as possible. CANA wants to honor your valuable time. To that end, we recently updated our association management software, which includes a new content management system to support a new website. Staff transferred previously existing website content to the new software and updated the design for a fresh look and feel. Most CANA members visit the CANA website once in a while to accomplish a specific task--pay a dues invoice, purchase a class or look for another CANA member. CANA’s website looks new, but still supports the content you have come to rely on while bringing you an enhanced functionality. Want a few tips on how to proceed? CANA staff created this handy guide to help you save time and support your activity as you cruise the new website. I want to…Take a CANA Course
Don’t have a profile already? Our new site makes it quick and easy to create one! Fill out this form with your information. If you are on the staff of a CANA Member organization, you may experience a brief delay while we connect you to your company. Once your profile is ready, you can login to register for your online or in-person course. Renew Our MembershipThank you for being a CANA Member! If you recently got your notice to renew, you have a few options:
If you prefer, you’re always welcome to turn to the post office and renew by check — our address hasn’t changed! Pay an InvoiceReceived a membership dues invoice? Follow the directions above to place it in your “done” pile. Have a different type of invoice? As detailed above, follow the directions to log in to our website and you’ll find a full transaction history. To log in, you’ll first need to reset your password. The quickest method is to find the the email you got from us and follow that link. Or you can enter your email address here to rest your password. (You can always contact CANA if you get tripped up along the way.) Once you’ve logged in successfully, check your profile and your company’s profile to locate the invoice you want to pay. You can also keep this card on file for future invoices. Find a CANA MemberIn the market for a new product or service? Need to make a trade call and want to work with a CANA Member? Look no further than the CANA Member Directory! Every membership includes a listing in our directory so consumers and colleagues can always find your business. Supplier Members are featured in the CANA Marketplace, organized by categories for the variety of services they provide. Try searching by keyword, location, or business category to find a company that specializes in a particular product or service. Funeral homes, cemeteries, crematories and other practitioners are featured in the Member Directory. You can search by state to locate a business in a particular region. Try a search if you want to see what businesses hold a membership in your area. Be sure to look for your own listing, too, to make sure the information we have for you puts your best foot forward. Need to make an update? Look to the next section. Update Our Directory ListingOne of the primary reasons motivating this software upgrade is to ensure that you’ll have better control and more options when deciding how your company appears in our directory. Not only will you find it easier to keep your information up-to-date, but you can also designate a general phone or email address for consumers on your company profile in addition to the direct phone or email information in your individual profile. There is a whole range of new features you can add to your company profile, including links to your social channels, pictures of your facility, an introductory video, and a new form that makes it easy for consumers to contact your business directly. In addition to your new and improved directory listing capabilities, you also have complete control over the employees tied to your member record, meaning you can easily add new staff or mark them as inactive. These employees will hear from CANA directly and can log in to register for a course, but you get to decide what level of control they should have over your company listing. Get started by logging in. The first time you log in, you’ll need to reset your password. Follow the email you got from us (easiest) or enter your email address here to kick it off (easy) — if you get stuck, contact CANA to get help (always). Once you’ve logged in, you can update your information and then Switch Profiles to update your company information. We’ve got your back, which means we’ll double-check any changes that come through. Join CANA
Access Your Member ResourcesWant to catch up on The Cremationist or download what you need to write your SOP manual? Start by logging in to the Member Portal. From there, find the page you want in the Member Resources dropdown. Each one will take you to a page with information, resources, archives, and more! Help with the RolloutDid you get stuck? Meet up with a bug? Run aground on a 404? We want to hear about it! Here’s a survey where you can tell us where you encountered your issue and what happened. We’re grateful for your feedback to help us improve.
There’s a story about a Stanford business class who was given the assignment of making the greatest ROI possible on $5 in two hours, at the end of which they would make a half-hour presentation to the rest of the class. Most students tried to buy something for $5 and sell it for a little more within the two hours, making a small return. Others recognized that the $5 was really a distraction and spent their time conducting services like filling bike tires for $1 around campus. They were more successful. But the most successful group recognized that their most valuable asset was neither the $5 nor the two hours. It was the opportunity to present in front of a room of Stanford MBA students, which they sold to a local employer for hundreds of dollars – racking up a return in the thousands of percent. The point is, don’t get distracted. And definitely don’t get distracted by a dollar figure when you’re considering what you have to sell that’s of value. I’ve met funeral home owners by the score who shake their heads in frustration and say something to the effect of, “Boy, did we step in it when we positioned cremation as an alternative to the funeral. (And to memorialization, and to ceremony, and to engagement with the funeral home…).” And they’re right. But the good news is, that’s not a mistake we’re stuck with. The trick is not to get distracted. Don’t get distracted by what a family thinks they want to pay. Don’t get distracted by the phrase “direct cremation.” Don’t get distracted by conceptions of yourself as a disposal solution. Don’t get distracted. The entire concept of “direct cremation” and asking for it as an escape route from your normal offerings is not new. Jessica Mitford was encouraging her disciples to demand it 60 years ago. But there’s some encouraging data that suggests we can still stem the tide. It Was Never Really About CostMy firm has conducted more than a million dollars’ worth of research on consumer preferences on death care in the past few years. One of my favorite data points deals with expected costs of death care services. We’ve asked a huge, statistically representative sample of Americans what they would expect to pay for two things: a funeral with a burial, and a funeral with cremation. We can then average all the responses to get a sense of the general perception of cost. When you do this multiple times, in multiple decades, you get to watch how preferences evolve. Over the past ten years, the answer to the “burial” question has remained exactly the same, when adjusted for inflation, to the dollar. Remarkably, the average American expects a funeral-with-burial to cost exactly what they did a decade ago. But over that same period, Americans’ perception of the cost of a cremation has significantly outpaced inflation. In other words, the gap is closing. And we can expect it to keep closing. Because it was never really about cost. Americans’ preference for cremation is decreasingly tethered to cost. As with other low-frequency purchase decisions, like houses or cars, cost is simply all we know to ask about. We buy vegetables all the time, and therefore understand to make decisions on cost, but also on freshness, quality, organic, and so on. But we don’t plan funerals often enough to have those reference points, so we revert to the first thing we can think of. That’s why most Americans say the first question they ask if planning a funeral is how much it will cost, but only a tiny percentage of Americans say the cost is the worst thing about the funeral. The $5 is only a distraction. Don’t fall for it. Consumer-Centric InnovationHere's another key statistic: only 14% of Americans agree with the statement that, “with cremation there’s no need for a funeral, memorial service, or other form of life celebration.” Fourteen percent! To hear your average funeral pro tell it, it’s at least 50. But only one in seven Americans really sees cremation as a “way out” of the ceremony. Now, more than that, one in seven might not want their local funeral home to have anything to do with the ceremony, which is a value hurdle you need to clear. And more from there might not ever get around to dealing with Aunt Maude’s ashes, which is where your experience and leadership come into play. But it’s vital to recognize the distinction: direct cremation isn’t really what most people want. Not even close. When Apple launched the iPhone, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer literally laughed at them for the price tag: “…That is the most expensive phone in the world. And it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard.” Ballmer failed to recognize that while the prevailing strategy of the time was to sell phones business-down, Apple flipped the model on its head by going consumer-up. Today, there’s no distinction between your “work phone” and the phone you use to scroll social media. Not only did Apple give us that customer-centric innovation, they charged a premium for it. Funeral homes and cremationists would do well to remember that message: when you give the consumer what they’re asking for, you’re providing more value and can charge more, not less. In fact, that’s a pretty solid litmus test for whether you’re actually providing value as a business. Grocery stores discount the stuff they can’t sell otherwise. Department stores discount last season’s styles. If you’re giving your customers a discount, it’s an admission that what you’re selling isn’t really the valuable thing. And they know it. You Have More To Offer Than $5So, quit being distracted. In the death care space, your disposition services are the equivalent of the Stanford students’ $5. Making money off of it is enticing, and makes logical sense, but if you step back and take stock of the situation, you might notice you have much more valuable assets than that five-dollar bill. You have a market who doesn’t understand grief, who is hurting, afraid, and burdened, and they’re walking into your business. And you know exactly what they need to heal and how to help their community do the same. It doesn’t take a Stanford MBA to notice that’s worth a lot more than a few hours’ rental of your retort.
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