The Heart of Living and Dying is a 2 hour group process which offers members of the public the opportunity to have an advance care planning type conversation about what matters to them in their living and dying. Developed by Deirdre Mc Kenna, a social worker in the Southern Health and Social Care Trust, this Guide is a “how to” guide for anyone with advanced facilitation skills who wants to offer these gentle conversations where they are. If possible, we would recommend people participate in one of these conversations before facilitating them. This allows the person feel the process from the inside as it were.

This Guide provides Facilitators help to plan and hold group conversations about dying and death. The Guide is informed by the experience of hosting these conversations in the Southern Health and Social Care Trust, where people could speak openly and freely about important matters when they felt comfortable and were invited to do so. This guide is intended to help facilitators to create that comfortable space as well as to guide facilitation. 

View guide here