Foundations of
Death Education

Write your awesome label here.

Class material opens September 16, 2026!

Eight Live Zoom classes on Wednesdays: September 23, 30, October 7, 14, 21, 28, November 4 and 18, 5:30-7:30 MST. (One week break, no class meeting November 11.)

Course overview
An 8-week online course with weekly Zoom sessions, covering the psychological, spiritual, cultural, and ethical dimensions of death and dying, culminating in a hands-on capstone.
Who is this for?
Educators and lifelong learners, clergy and chaplains, death doulas, hospice and healthcare professionals, funeral service providers, and community organizers — anyone ready to bring death literacy into their work and communities. No prior background in thanatology is required.
Small cohort
With only 15 spots, this cohort stays small on purpose. Developing trust makes space for the honest, sometimes hard conversations death education asks of us.
Certificate included

The Conversations
We All Need

(but that are so hard to find)

Death touches every life, yet most of us are never taught how to talk about it, teach about it, or hold space for others moving through it. And the conversations that do exist rarely make room for everyone — for different religious traditions, cultural practices, and identities to be seen and honored rather than flattened into one approach.

How do we move into this space together?

Foundations of Death Education is an eight-week hybrid course from the Iliff Death Care Collective, designed for educators, clergy, death doulas, hospice and healthcare professionals, and anyone called to bring thoughtful, culturally responsive death education into their communities.

How the course works

Course Structure: Each week pairs a two-hour live session (featuring discussion, case studies, and facilitation practice) with asynchronous readings, reflection, and applied assignments.

What You'll Learn: You'll build a grounded understanding of thanatology (the psychological, sociological, spiritual, cultural, ethical, and legal dimensions of death, dying, and bereavement) and translate that knowledge into practical tools for teaching, outreach, and community care.

At the End: The course culminates in a capstone curriculum development assignment you can take directly into your own work and into the world!

What You'll Learn

(Besides how to bring up death at a dinner party and not clear the room)

Build Culturally Responsive Education

Learn how to design and deliver culturally responsive death education, attentive to race, religion, spirituality, LGBTQIA+ identity, disability, and socioeconomic context

Question Dominant Death Narratives

Use a critical lens on dominant death narratives, including medicalization, colonialism, and structural inequities in death care systems

Evaluate Your Own Offering

Tools to evaluate a death education offering through feedback and reflective practice
Write your awesome label here.

Explain After-Death Care Options

How to clearly and accurately describe after-death care options for community audiences

Understand Thanatology's Core Dimensions

Core principles of thanatology across psychological, sociological, spiritual, cultural, ethical, and legal dimensions

Design Outreach and Teaching Strategies

Explore strategies for death education and outreach — courses, webinars, presentations, podcasts, and lectures

Week-By-Week Outline

  • Week 1: Reframing Death: Foundations of Thanatology & Death Literacy
    Week 2: Cultural, Religious & Structural Dimensions of Death
    Week 3: After-Death Care: Evidence-Based Education
    Week 4: Grief Theory & Psychological Dimensions
    Week 5: Pedagogy for Death Education 
    Week 6: Ethics, Boundaries & Professional Identity 
    Week 7: Outreach, Marketing & Community Engagement
    Week 8: Capstone Presentations & Integration 
Write your awesome label here.

Why this matters

Maybe it's a hospital bedside conversation you didn't know how to have. A loss that reshaped how you see the world. A role that puts you near death and dying, but never taught you how to talk about it. These nudges show up in different ways, but they tend to point toward the same question: how do I do this with more skill, more confidence, more care?

Alongside the coursework, you'll find a small community moving through the same questions, seeking space to reflect, be challenged, and learn from people who understand why this work matters. 

Meet your teacher,
Rev. Dr. Matt Ricke

Rev. Dr. Matt Ricke is passionate about enriching lives through education, making death care and death education more accessible, and creating powerful and transformative spaces for spiritual exploration. Matt is currently an organizational ombuds, resilience coach, death doula, and community minister who brings experience in hospice and death care to this course.

Matt holds a Ph.D. in higher education from the University of Northern Colorado, where his dissertation focused on how campus leaders make meaning of death-related crises. Matt recently completed a two-year certificate in Spiritual Direction with Cherry Hill Seminary in February.

Matt is a Board Certified Coach (BCC), holds an End-of-Life Doula Proficiency Badge from the National End-of-Life Doula Association, and is a member of Spiritual Directors International, the Zen Peacemakers Order, and the American Academy of Experts on Traumatic Stress. A graduate of the Foundations of Death Care course, Matt was privileged to be a beta tester for the first iteration of the course and is thrilled to be on the faculty of the Iliff Death Care Collective. 
Patrick Jones - Course author

Our students love us

(It's mutual!)

This course has been extremely valuable. Matt is a wonderful teacher and guide. I always felt valued and heard as a student.
This was an exceptional online course...I appreciated the learning modialties, the contemplative and listening presence of the instructor and our seasoned cohort. Thank you!
The whole course was helpful- it was very well organized, good pacing. Great information and healthy culture of engagement.
Created with