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Paper short abstract:

End of Life Doulas (EOL) are a rapidly-growing field of end of life workers, advocating for clients, promoting death literacy, vigiling with the dying, and offering support for after-death rituals. Filling gaps left by corporate funeral homes, EOLD care is offered to isolated and lonely people also.

Paper long abstract:

At end of life 'care' has been precariously situated in western societies between unpaid family member work or through strangers in aged care or hospital facilities. Currently, care in the private home is being encouraged, as medical and aged care homes beds are in high demand; this trend will continue as the silver tsumani begins for the Baby Boomer generation. End of Life Doulas (EOLD) are end of life workers who specialise in advance planning, advocating for and supporting those at end of life (life-limiting or terminal diagnosis), vigiling with the dying, and offering grief support, after-death body care, and funeral information and/or support. Arguably EOLDs fill a gap in care that has been the purview of family in the past - in globalised and neoliberal modern times where 'family' is often dispersed, fragmented, or absent, and 'care' may be self-administered by individuals to themselves. EOLDs offer a knowledge base and skillset - sometimes paid, sometimes not - that not only offers care to the lonely and isolated at end of life, but support and a social model of learning and information transfer for friends and family around a person at end of life. EOLDs actively model and transfer death literacy and compassionate community formation as an inherent aspect of the work of care offered. The practice of doing and knowing in end of life care permits people to re-learn the language, processes, and understandings of death and dying, enriching individuals, and nurturing more informed choices for community members.