Alive Announces Death Doula Training Program in Partnership with IDLM

Published on July 3, 2026

Alive is proud to announce a new educational offering: the Death and End-of-Life Doula Specialist Certification Program, developed in partnership with the International Doula Life Movement Institute (IDLM).

This program reflects Alive’s ongoing commitment to expanding compassionate, community-based care and education—ensuring that individuals and families facing the end of life are supported with dignity, presence, and understanding.

For more than 50 years, Alive has walked alongside patients and families through hospice and palliative care, grief support, and community education. Now, through this new program, Alive is helping prepare the next generation of caregivers to carry that work forward in deeply meaningful ways.

Training the Next Generation of Compassionate Caregivers

A death doula, also called an end-of-life doula or death midwife is a trained non-medical companion who supports individuals and their families through the dying process. While hospice and palliative care teams address medical and clinical needs, a death doula fills a distinct and vital role: offering emotional, spiritual, and practical support before, during, and after death. Alongside doctors, nurses, CNAs, social workers, and chaplains – doulas can fill in gaps and provide support beyond the existing team’s scope of practice.

Death doulas help people clarify their wishes and values, navigate difficult conversations, create legacy projects, plan meaningful vigils, and simply be present in ways that the healthcare system often cannot. They serve the dying person and the people who love them -sitting with fear, holding space for grief, and honoring the full humanity of this transition.

The role has grown significantly in recent years as more individuals and families seek personalized, values-aligned care at the end of life. Death doulas work across a wide range of settings including private homes, inpatient hospice facilities, hospitals, assisted living communities, and beyond. Some work independently; others partner closely with hospice teams, hospitals, and community organizations.

Alive’s program combines the internationally recognized IDLM curriculum with the real-world experience of a leading nonprofit hospice. Participants will engage in more than 80 hours of instruction, hands-on learning, and clinical insight offered through a hybrid format that includes both virtual learning and in-person experiences.

The first cohort will begin July 18, 2026.

What Sets This Death and End-of-Life Doula Specialist Program Apart

Most death doula training programs are delivered entirely online, by a single instructor, in a few days or weeks. This program is something different — and the difference is the environment in which it’s taught.

Train Inside a Living End-of-Life Care Community

Alive has been at the center of end-of-life care in Middle Tennessee for more than 50 years. When you train here, you aren’t learning about this work in the abstract — you’re learning it inside an organization that lives it every single day. Students gain direct exposure through observation and hands-on practice in both home and inpatient settings, alongside individuals and families navigating serious illness, terminal diagnoses, and grief. That kind of access simply cannot be replicated in a self-paced online course.

A Simulation Lab Built for Complex, Real-World Scenarios

Alive’s state-of-the-art simulation lab gives students a rare opportunity to work through ethically complex situations in real time — practicing decision-making, presence, and communication before they are ever at a bedside.

Structured Clinical Immersion and Interdisciplinary Insight

Students gain a working understanding of the full spectrum of end-of-life care. You’ll learn directly from palliative care advanced practitioners, hospice pharmacists, oncology physicians, licensed grief counselors, chaplains, social workers, and funeral service professionals. Other programs talk about healthcare systems. This one will make you fluent inside them.

A Proven Curriculum, Backed by Recognized Credibility

The IDLM Institute has trained more than 3,000 doulas across 18 countries. Their Death and End-of-Life Doula Specialist Certification Program curriculum is rigorous, ethics-driven, and taught synchronously by actively practicing doulas. Combined with the backing of one of the nation’s first and most respected nonprofit hospice organizations, graduates of this program enter the field with a credential that carries real weight.

Built-In Community from Day One

From the moment you join, you’ll have access to relationships with Middle Tennessee end-of-life and grief care professionals, Alive staff embedded in the local care ecosystem, and a cohort of peers who will remain part of your professional community long after graduation. In a field where ongoing support matters, that network is part of what you’re investing in.

A Shared Vision for Compassionate Care

“At the International Doula Life Movement Institute, we are committed to raising the standard of end-of-life care. Partnering with Alive allows us to bridge education with real clinical insight—ensuring doulas are not only called to this work but truly equipped to do it well.”
– Anna Marie Adams, CEO, International Doula Life Movement Institute

“Death Doula work is not something you learn once and carry forever unchanged. Every person we sit with teaches us something new – about presence, about what it means to be truly seen, about the ways grief and love are always intertwined. Continuing education isn’t a requirement to check off. It’s how we honor the people who trust us with the most sacred moments of their lives. I am deeply honored to be part of bringing this education to Middle Tennessee alongside Alive and IDLM. There is something powerful about learning this work inside a community that has been living it for 50 years. Continuing education and real experience aren’t supplemental to becoming a Doula, they are the foundation of this work. I am so looking forward to building this community and walking alongside the next generation of doulas who will show up for our dying folk and their circles.”
– Megan Morano, C-EOLD, Alive Volunteer Coordinator, Alive Institute Faculty, and Founder of Until Death Doulas

“Rarely do you find a rigorous learning environment that also feels genuinely alive. Taught by working death doulas who carry the weight and the gift of this work every day, IDLM’s training prepares learners to companion patients and families with both skill and soul, in any setting, age, or circumstance. Flexible electives, access to Alive’s interdisciplinary guest faculty, and a clinical immersion pathway with supervised mini-rotations round out a learning experience that honors both the clinical realities of dying and the profound humanity of those living it.”
– Alissa Drescher, MA, LPC, Fellow in Thanatology, Senior Director of Psychosocial and Mission Based Services at Alive

Accessible and Inclusive by Design

Alive and IDLM share a belief that this work should be accessible to those who feel called to it. To support that vision, the program offers scholarships, reduced rates for certain groups, and flexible payment options.

Encouraging healthcare professionals to gain a clear picture of the Death Doula’s scope of practice, learn how to work in partnership with Doulas effectively, and build the tools, language, and presence that allow you to offer deeper, more confident support to patients and families within your professional role.

Individuals newly drawn to this work will receive a comprehensive education and a supportive, mission-driven pathway into the field with a supportive community.

Now Enrolling

If you’ve felt called to this work, there has never been a better time or a better place to answer that call.

Whether you are newly drawn to end-of-life care, already working in a healthcare or caregiving role, or a practicing doula looking to deepen your training and expand your community, this program was built with you in mind.

The inaugural Beta Cohort of the Death and End-of-Life Doula Specialist Certification Program at Alive is now accepting applications. Seats are limited.

Scholarships, reduced rates for students, clergy, and volunteers, and flexible payment plans are available — because we believe financial circumstances should never be the reason someone can’t do this work.

Learn More about the Death/End-of-Life Doula Training Program at Alive

By investing in education and expanding access to compassionate care, Alive continues its mission of ensuring no one faces the end of life alone.