Certificates in Thanatology

12 Credits

Designed for professionals who work with children and adolescents, this certificate examines dying, death, loss, and grief in the context of the family, with special emphasis on supporting children and adolescents. This academic path is appropriate for child life professionals, medical caregivers, social workers, child and adolescent psychologists, and employees or volunteers with family grief centers or grief camps.

Learning Objectives:

• Discern, reflect upon, and evaluate student’s own relationship with death and grief, both as an individual and a member of society.
• Examine and evaluate the role of the family as the unit of care, and the ways family dynamics impact children and adolescents with respect to dying, death, and grief.
• Evaluate the research literature on the attitudes and responses of children and teens to death, loss, and grief.
• Examine current research and literature on suicide among adults (prevention, assessment, intervention, post-intervention, postvention (grief support after suicide), special populations, ethnic/cultural groups, and global context).
• Evaluate evidence-based approaches to assessment, clinical intervention, treatment models, and safety planning for children, teens, and adults.

12 Credits

Designed for professionals in healthcare, grief support, organ/tissue procurement, funeral service, counseling, and clergy/chaplains who desire to build a skill set in diversity, equity, social justice, and spirituality. This academic path is also appropriate for those who volunteer within hospice facilities, hospitals, funeral homes, faith communities, senior centers, and family grief centers.

Learning Objectives: 

• Discern, reflect upon, and evaluate student’s own relationship with death and grief, both as an individual and a member of society.
• Identify, describe, and analyze how the experience of grief can be influenced by socio-economic context, class, race, age, gender, and other cultural variables.
• Analyze the ways “critically reflective” approaches to delivery of care (such as “critical social work”) can enhance social justice at end of life and for the grieving.
• Examine and analyze the theoretical and evidence base for the importance of spirituality in healthcare.

12 Credits

Geared for licensed professional counselors and others who work in the counseling industry (social workers, coaches) or as part of interprofessional healthcare teams, this certificate in suicidology and postvention (grief support after suicide) prepares students to expand their knowledge and skills base to include the specialized area of suicidology. Going beyond the biomedical illness model in which suicide is considered a symptom of psychiatric illness, our certificate program educates students about evidence-based theory, treatments, and intervention. Students will explore content that is not typically covered in depth in degree programs that prepare learners for licensure as counselors or therapists. 

Learning Objectives: 

• Discern, reflect upon, and evaluate student’s own relationship with death and grief, both as an individual and a member of society.
• Compare and contrast theoretical models of the cause of suicide.
• Examine current research and literature on suicide among adults (prevention, assessment, intervention, post-intervention, postvention, special populations, ethnic/cultural groups, and global context).
• Evaluate evidence-based approaches to assessment, clinical intervention, treatment models, and safety planning for children, teens, and adults.
• Examine approaches to grief support after suicide.

12 Credits

Geared for licensed professional counselors and others who work in the counseling industry (social workers, coaches) or as part of interprofessional healthcare teams, the certificate in grief and bereavement counseling/support prepares students to build upon their counseling skills in the highly specialized and sensitive areas of dying, death, grief, and loss. Students will explore content that is not typically covered in depth in degree programs that prepare learners for licensure as counselors or therapists. 

Learning Objectives: 

• Discern, reflect upon, and evaluate student’s own relationship with death and grief, both as an individual and a member of society.
• Articulate and evaluate primary theories, models, and key concepts related to grief.
• Articulate and evaluate best practices for bereavement facilitation for individual adults and families with children or teens.
• Demonstrate practical individual and group facilitation skills through process recordings.
• Describe and assess approaches to diversity in grief counseling and support, including ethnicity, culture, gender, and spirituality.

12 Credits

Designed for individuals working in healthcare, grief support, organ/tissue procurement, funeral service, counseling, clergy/chaplains, volunteers (within, for example, hospice, hospital, funeral home, faith community, senior center, or family grief center) who recognize the need for organizational or community education about death, dying, grief, and loss. This certificate is also appropriate for K-12 and educators in higher education who want to incorporate death and dying into their curricula but are not sure how to go about it or need better content understanding. 

Learning Objectives: 

• Discern, reflect upon, and evaluate student’s own relationship with death and grief, both as an individual and a member of society.
• Examine best practices in end-of-life care and grief support.
• Develop a course in an area of expertise that meets the individual learning needs of a diverse student population.

12 Credits

Funeral professionals work within communities and are often the first point of contact after a family member dies. This certificate will offer funeral professionals the tools they need to create and implement excellent aftercare programs for their communities.

Learning Objectives: 

• Discern, reflect upon, and evaluate student’s own relationship with death and grief, both as an individual and a member of society.
• Examine best practices in end-of-life care and grief support.
• Develop a course in an area of expertise that meets the individual learning needs of a diverse student population.
• Examine and evaluate the purposes and practices for ceremonies and rituals to help families plan more meaningful funeral services.

12 Credits

The leaders within faith communities often find themselves overwhelmed when faced with providing end-of-life care and grief support. This certificate offers faith-based community leaders with the information they need to better understand the challenges families face when a family member is dying; and how to best support families in their grief journey.

Learning Objectives: 

• Discern, reflect upon, and evaluate student’s own relationship with death and grief, both as an individual and a member of society.
• Examine best practices in end-of-life care and grief support.
• Examine and evaluate the role of the family as the unit of care, and the ways family dynamics impact children and adolescents with respect to dying, death, and grief.
• Explore the ethical and moral challenges and dilemmas faced during the dying process and at the end of life.
• Examine the notion of “total pain” as coined by Dame Cicely Saunders, and how spiritual care can inform compassionate care for the dying and the grieving.

12 Credits

This certificate offers an overview of the history, theory, and practice of hospice and palliative care; knowledge of family systems; developmental perspectives; and best practices in grief support strategies. These four areas are foundational for effective family care at the end of life and offer students the knowledge and skills they need to support dying individuals and provide families the support they need.

Learning Objectives: 

• Discern, reflect upon, and evaluate student’s own relationship with death and grief, both as an individual and a member of society.
• Examine best practices in end-of-life care and grief support.
• Examine and evaluate the role of the family as the unit of care, and the ways family dynamics impact children and adolescents with respect to dying, death, and grief.
• Explore the ethical and moral challenges and dilemmas faced during the dying process and at the end of life.

12 Credits

Designed for working professionals, this certificate allows for combining courses from the curriculum into a personalized 12 credit certificate in General Thanatology Studies. It’s geared for professionals who want to craft their own certificate to fulfill individual educational needs. Courses will be determined through consultation with the Program Director. 

Learning Objectives: 

• Customized learning objectives will be determined in collaboration with the Program Director of Thanatology. Courses are taken at the master’s level and student’s credentials will be factored into the decision-making process. 

Janet McCord, PhD, FT, has been a thanatologist and suicidologist for nearly 30 years. She was mentored during her doctoral studies by Professor Elie Wiesel (Holocaust survivor, author, and international human rights activist); and Professor Edwin S. Shneidman (a psychologist who spearheaded suicide prevention across the United States beginning in the 1950s).

Dr. McCord has educated hundreds of master’s level students around the globe in graduate thanatology programs. Among her publications, she is the lead author of Chapter 18: Death Education (with Drs. Rebecca Morse and Norma Hirsch) in the Association for Death Education and Counseling’s (ADEC) Handbook of Thanatology (3rd Edition, 2021). She has served in various leadership roles in ADEC between 2011 and 2018 including President (2016-2017), and Interim Treasurer (May 24-August 26, 2022).

She has been a member of the International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement (IWG) since 2016 and embraces the IWG’s vision as her own: a world where dying, death, and bereavement are an open part of all cultures. Her research interests include the investigation of global and cultural perspectives of trauma, dying, death, grief, suicide, and loss, and the intersection of thanatology with literature and the arts. Death education is particularly important to her, and she is regularly part of the Teaching that Matters panels for the ADEC annual conferences.

She currently serves as a section editor for the Routledge Online Resources: Death, Dying, and Bereavement. She has several publications in books and journals, including a research article co-authored with a former student and fellow faculty member, published in OMEGA: Journal of Death and Dying in 2020, a needs assessment for grief support after perinatal loss in rural Minnesota.

Dr. McCord’s dedication to improving death education is a global endeavor. She collaborated as part of a working group to draft a formal position paper on assisted death for the International Association for Suicide Prevention, presented at the 32nd World Congress in Piran, Slovenia in 2023. She is a member of the advisory board for PoMA (Peace of Mind Afghanistan), an international non-profit that specializes in delivering mental health and psychosocial support for at-risk populations, especially those who have experienced conflict or migration-related trauma. She is a Senior advisor to Hope North Uganda, a school and community education program for war-affected youth in Northern Uganda, especially now in its transition from a school to a community-based educational center.

Dr. McCord’s research interests are international in scope. She is currently engaged in ethnographic research focused on burial, funeral, and mourning rituals among the Acholi and BaGanda peoples of Uganda, and plans to expand this research to other low-income countries.

Dr. McCord is a regular presenter at conferences around the world including the Association for Death Education and Counseling; the National Symposium for Academic Palliative Care Education and Research; the National Alliance for Children’s Grief; the International Conference on Death, Dying, and Bereavement in LaCrosse, WI; the International Association for Suicide Prevention; the Death, Dying, and Disposal Conference of the Association for the Study of Death and Society; and the International Conference on Grief and Bereavement in Contemporary Society.

She lives in east central Wisconsin with her family and relaxes by traveling, riding her horse Blu, gardening, and hanging out with her cats, dog, and assorted poultry. For family consumption only, she maintains a blog on Whova called “The Continuing Adventures of the Crazy Chicken Lady.”

Edgewood College is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.

The Association for Death Education and Counseling (ADEC) is not an accrediting body but a professional association of thanatologists that has created, over the past several decades, a Body of Essential Knowledge. The program curriculum is aligned with the ADEC Body of Essential Knowledge.