Our Values

  • Collaboration

    To partner with and support organizations and individuals that seek to improve end of life care in ways that go beyond the scope of our offerings and will benefit dying people and their loved ones.

  • Connection & Community

    To serve as a resource, but also assist those we serve in reconnecting with their own inherent power. To foster community death care, to honor and recognize sacred rites of passage. To cultivate spaces in our community where grief and death are witnessed and normalized.

  • Death Positivity

    To encourage people to speak openly about death, dying, and the realities of grief. More about the tenets of death positivity here.

  • Humility

    To maintain an interpersonal stance that is other-oriented (or open to the other) in relation to cultural identity. To be accountable to self and community, open to learning from mistakes, and to pursue repair and/or reconciliation as a process as opposed to one-time occurrence.

  • Inclusivity

    To work to ensure that our products and services are equally available to all people. To be explicitly anti-racist in the delivery of services. To seek to ‘queer’ death and provide care to the LGBTQ+ community to which we belong. To collaborate intergenerationally whenever possible.

  • Integrity & Quality

    To develop our business in a way that adheres to high ethical standards of practice. To remain diligently devoted to our values as outlined. To think critically about our services and the manner in which they are delivered. To provide competent, high-quality, and evidence-based services.

  • Sustainability

    To focus on meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. To integrate anti-capitalism and cost accessibility actively. To utilize self-care and community-care techniques among collective members.

  • Trauma-Informed

    To engage people with histories of trauma in a manner which recognizes the presence of symptoms and acknowledges the role that trauma has played in their lives.

Death Doulas

 

Kai Wonder MacDonald

Kai (they/them) is a passionate human. They meander through life with their heart on their sleeve, ready for that deep meaningful experience with a stranger, a client, a friend or anyone who likes to be open and vulnerable. In 2016, Kai's beloved mother was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and their father died unexpectedly. This began a personal journey of grief and loss that changed their life and led them to the professional path they are on today.

They attended INELDA's end of life doula training in 2017. Kai graduated with their MSW from West Chester University, Philadelphia Campus in 2019. Their current full time work is supporting people who have had recent unexpected death in their family, through grief therapy, support groups, and non-traditional grief support as well. Here at the collective, in addition to taking private death doula clients and doing our ongoing grief and death doula education, they started the very successful Grief Circle in their cozy living room. Once the pandemic hit, they moved Grief Circle to Zoom and began offering it twice a month, one to anyone walking with their grief and a second offering for those working the front lines/in healthcare. Now Grief Circle is offered once a month. (More on the Grief Support page!)

Additional credentials: LSW

Kamala Alexandra

Bio coming soon. Kamala’s pronouns are they/them. You can catch them co-starring on our TikTok and Instagram feeds in the meanwhile!

Lori (Elle) Zaspel

Lori (she/they) is a social worker and therapist serving the greater Philadelphia area, as well as co-founding this collective and bringing the team together. A lifelong weirdo who was seemingly born interested in the things that adults hushed her from discussing, she still finds death, money, and sex some of the most fascinating topics! Lori believes we can all benefit from approaching complicated issues with frank, but gentle acknowledgment and open ears. She especially loves to accompany and facilitate MAiD families and individuals (currently only legal in NJ), as well as LGBTQ+ folks, complicated families, and skeptics. Oh, how she loves a skeptic! If you’re looking for the most blunt of our trio who doesn’t shy away from conflict — Lori is your doula.

Lori loves speaking engagements — ask her about your event, educational need, facilitation request, etc.

Lori is a white, currently able-bodied, queer woman living in West Philadelphia with her partner, kooky dog, and ancient cat. She loves flea markets, thrift stores, playing drums, and creating content (sometimes). As a double Gemini, there aren’t many topics she can’t riff about and she absolutely loves to hyper-focus on her interest du jour. Right now, it’s quilting.

Additional credentials: LCSW

Nicki Cowan

Nicki (she/they) is a social worker, therapist, and ritualist. A reverent lover of wonder, rites of passage, and mystical experiences, Nicki arrived at grief and death work via birth work. In her work as a death doula supporting individuals, families, and communities, she strives to be tender, creative, and rock solid in liminal spaces and along wild edges. Nicki brings years of experience as a hospice social worker and is currently pursuing her PhD in Psychedelic Studies and Transpersonal Psychology. She looks forward to supporting individuals and families in exploring safe, legal, and ethical approaches to expanded states of consciousness. Nicki is also passionate about supporting her fellow queers in their living and dying.

Nicki is a cis white woman and aims to ground her work in anti-racist and non-pathologizing frameworks. She lives in Old City with her rakish cats and in her spare time enjoys being around fires, in water, and cavorting through the woods. 

Additional credentials: LCSW MPH

Collaborators

 

Naila Francis

Even in her days as an arts & entertainment reporter interviewing musicians, writers, and artists ranging from Bobby McFerrin and James Earl Jones to Elizabeth Gilbert and Brandi Carlile, Naila had a knack for delving deep and inviting confidences. She was once asked by a songwriter if she were a psychologist because of all he revealed as they talked, while one of her editors was fond of saying, “Do people really tell you this stuff?”

Naila’s since carried that innate curiosity, generous listening and warm compassion to her work as a tender at life’s thresholds. She’s a grief coach, death midwife, and ordained interfaith minister, as well as a founding member of Salt Trails, a Philadelphia collective making grief public and visible through community rituals. She lives in Northwest Philly, where you can often find her singing to the trees in her favorite cathedral, Wissahickon Valley Park.

Lenée A. Voss

A woo woo jawn from way back, Lenée (she/her) is a grief companion, budding death doula, and reiki master. She hails from and lives in Philadelphia, where she has a lot of houseplants, Air Max90s, and crystals. Lenée’s body of work includes Hip Hop is for Lovers Radio, the #AnonymousCrowdfund, and her well-curated Twitter (@dopegirlfresh). A featured writer at Complex, Feministe, and ColorBloq, Lenée is expanding her artist’s practice to include visual art and music. Connect with Lenée at sayheylenee.com or support her work at patreon.com/dopegirlfresh.