CERAH Speaker Series – Palliative Care Is…Strengthening approaches to palliative and end-of-life care in homeless and harm reduction settings: launching a discussion-based curriculum
In this webinar you will hear from community-based researchers, palliative care practitioners, and frontline workers part of co-developing this new curriculum. We will show you the curriculum package, share how and why it was developed, give some ideas for how to use it, and have some discussion. We look forward to seeing you!
By the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:
- Describe how a palliative approach to care can improve quality of life and reduce suffering for people experiencing serious illness in contexts of homelessness, poverty, racism, and other forms of structural inequity.
- Explore how the Palliative Care Is… discussion-based curriculum can be used flexibly to support conversations about serious illness, planning, care, grief, and loss across community and healthcare settings.
- Consider how shared learning across health, palliative care, housing, poverty, racism, outreach, and community services can strengthen collaboration and support more person-centred and equitable care.
Speakers & Bios:
Hayley Sallis is a contemplative end-of-life care practitioner, community grief facilitator, and founder of Mourning Midwife. With more than 30 years of frontline experience in mental health, harm reduction, grief, and end-of-life care, she works alongside individuals, families, and communities – particularly those experiencing structural vulnerability. Her practice weaves together relationship, ritual, creativity, and community to foster compassionate responses to grief, loss, and bereavement.
Char Futcher (she/her) has been engaged in learning and working at the intersection of harm reduction and palliative care for the last 7 years. She is passionate about braiding these approaches together. Char was a social worker on the PORT team, the outreach palliative care team on Lekwungen territory (‘Victoria’), until June 2026, when she returned to UVic to pursue her MSW.
Megan Conboy (she/her) is a Registered Nurse and Palliative Care Clinical Coach with Kingston Community Health Centres in southeastern Ontario, situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee and Huron-Wendat First Peoples. She has supported initiatives to improve access to inter-professional, equitable palliative care for vulnerable populations in her region. Outside of work, Megan is mom to two teenaged boys and enjoys spending time outdoors or curling up with a good book enjoying some rare peace and quiet.
Amy Pritzker is a social worker and grief educator with 15 years of experience in hospice palliative care, primarily in community hospice grief and bereavement programs. As a Palliative Care Clinical Coach with the Barrie and Area Ontario Health Team, she has spent the past two years helping frontline staff in shelters and community organizations integrate a palliative approach into their work.
Kelli Stajduhar is a Professor and Canada Research Chair at the University of Victoria and a leading scholar in palliative care, equity, and community-based research. Her work focuses on improving access to palliative and end-of-life care for people experiencing structural vulnerability, including those affected by homelessness, substance use, and social marginalization. Through long-standing partnerships with communities and frontline providers, Dr. Stajduhar’s research explores caregiving, dying, and grieving in contexts often overlooked by traditional health systems.
Ashley Mollison has worked with the Palliative Approaches to Care in Aging and Community Health research program at the University of Victoria over the last decade to develop, implement, and evaluate evidence-informed resources, programs, and services to advance equity-oriented palliative care. Her recently completed PhD focuses on caregiving at the end of life in contexts of homelessness. Ashley currently works as a Senior Evaluation Consultant with Cancer Care Alberta in Treaty 7 Territories working on projects to improve equity in access to cancer care.
Bernice Kamano is from the Da’naxda’xw First Nation Band, from the Kwakwaka’waka Nation and the Heiltsuk First Nation from Bella Bella. I was born an Urban First Nation person in Vancouver BC. I am a survivor of the Foster Care System. My life’s work has always focused on connecting with the colonized urban Indigenous community working towards health care, housing, and cultural supports. Over the last 30 years, I have worked for various agencies serving Indigenous Peoples facing homelessness.
Kassandra Fernandes has a Master of Public Health degree from Lakehead University and is also a PhD candidate in Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at Western University specializing in aging and occupational science. At CERAH, Kassandra works under the supervision of Holly Prince in the Indigenous Peoples’ Health & Aging Division as a Curriculum Developer. Kassandra also contributes to CERAH’s Aging in Place division through her involvement in several community-based projects, including AgeBIG and the Thunder Bay Museum’s Places & Faces Digital Storytelling, and the Oasis Senior Supportive Living expansion.