Definitions | Ageing as an LGBTQ+ Person | Needing Care | Death Planning | Grief and Bereavement | Caring for Yourself and Others | Money Matters | Resources
Contents
- Ageing as an LGBTQ+ Person
- Needing Care
- Death Planning
- Grief and Bereavement
- Caring for Others
- Money Matters
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People
- What is Death Anxiety?
- Additional Links and Information
- Films, Documentaries and Web
Ageing as an LGBTQ+ Person
Invite you to participate in the most important dinner conversation Australia is not having. It’s time to share your end-of-life wishes and plan a dinner to help others share theirs.
HALC provides free and comprehensive legal assistance (within operational guidelines) to people with HIV or Hepatitis-related legal matters and undertakes Community Legal Education and Law Reform activity in areas relating to HIV and Hepatitis.
The peer-led and run representative body of all people living with HIV based in NSW, and the voice of all people living with HIV in NSW.
Works to raise awareness and empower older people to activate, uphold, extend and defend their individual rights. We foster communities to respect and value seniors and their rights. We achieve our purpose by providing legal services, aged care advocacy and community education.
Needing Care
Advocacy organisation pursuing a change in the law that will enhance choice at the end-of-life. We seek legislation that enables competent adults, experiencing unbelievable suffering from a terminal or incurable illness, to receive medical assistance to end their life peacefully, at a time of their choosing.
Making an Advance Care Directive
This information booklet provides information to help you complete your Advance Care Directive. An Advance Care Directive form is provided at the end of the booklet, for you to complete and tear off.
Empowers health professionals and the broader community with the resources to ensure all people approaching and reaching end-of-life, and their families, have access to quality palliative care.
The largest peer-led and run representative body of all people living with HIV in Australia based in NSW, and the voice of all people living with HIV in NSW.
Related Articles
10 Practical Tasks to Help You Deal with a Terminal Illness. By Chris Raymond 2020
Death Planning
Advance Care Planning Australia
Advance care planning is thinking about and documenting your preferences for future health care. It prepares you and others for a time when you may no longer be able to communicate those decisions.
Body Donation
The following medical schools have donation programs.
Macquarie University Body Donations Program
University of Newcastle Body Donor Program
University of New England Body Donor Program
University of NSW Bequeathal Program
The University of Sydney Body Donor Program
University of Technology Sydney Body Donation Program
University of Wollongong Body Donation Program
Options for burial, cremation, funerals and ways to commemorate life
Including what to do after a death, and your legal rights in organising what happens after death.
Invite you to participate in the most important dinner conversation Australia is not having. It’s time to share your end-of-life wishes and plan a dinner to help others share theirs.
End-of-life-care: Why having a ‘digital’ death plan is essential to dying with dignity.
Online health care services, including My Health Record, electronic prescriptions and telehealth.
Organ and tissue donation can save and transform the lives of those Australians who receive a transplant.
Advocacy organisation pursuing a change in the law that will enhance choice at the end-of-life. We seek legislation that enables competent adults, experiencing unbelievable suffering from a terminal or incurable illness, to receive medical assistance to end their life peacefully, at a time of their choosing.
End-of-Life Doula Directory is an independently run directory especially for end-of-life doulas and consultants.
Supports legal changes to allow voluntary assisted dying in Australia.
State Library of NSW
LGBTQ+ friendly funeral services
- Life Rites
- Sydney Funerals Co.
- LGBTI Funerals owned by Afterlife Funerals
- Benjamin James, End of Life Services (benjaminjamesendoflife.com)
Making an Advance Care Directive
This booklet provides information to help you complete your Advance Care Directive. An Advance Care Directive form is provided at the end of the booklet, for you to complete and tear off.
My Health Record is an online summary of your key health information. When you have a My Health Record, your health information can be viewed securely online, from anywhere, at any time – even if you move or travel interstate. You can access your health information from any computer or device that’s connected to the internet.
Promotes a holistic approach to celebrating death and life.
NSW Trustee and Guardian - Make a Will
Have peace of mind your wishes will be respected, and your loved ones are taken care of by making a valid Will, appoint the Executor and Power of Attorney.
Encouraging all Australians to talk about organ and tissue donation. If you want to be a donor, make sure you tell your family and friends.
Palliative Care Australia is the national peak body for palliative care.
ACON has partnered with Safe Will, an online service where you can start, complete and update your bespoke will at any time. There are no fees until you are ready to submit your will.
Safeguarding the End of the Rainbow - Victoria
A guide to help LGBTI people to plan an end-of-life of their choice.
The Groundswell Project works with individuals, organisations and communities to improve how people in Australia die, care and grieve.
Your Life Matters and so does your funeral.
Grief and Bereavement
The National Association for Loss and Grief (NSW)
Offer grief support by telephone, although they are not a crisis centre.
They also offer a variety of brochures on dealing with various forms of grief
Factsheet on grief reactions following the death of an LGBTIQ partner.
Providing mental health support for LGBTQ people and people with HIV by providing a range of counselling services and a care coordination program.
Provides Australia-wide anonymous, LGBTI peer support and referral for people wanting to talk about a range of issues including sexuality, identity, gender, bodies, feelings or relationships.
A Sydney based service working across New South Wales, providing a broad range of specialised services for LGBTQIA+ people 12-25 including counselling.
Delivering digital mental health and wellbeing programs, backed by an in-house digital team.
A national charity providing all Australians experiencing emotional distress with access to 24-hour crisis support and suicide prevention services.
Provides information and support to help everyone in Australia achieve their best possible mental health, whatever their age and wherever they live.
Caring for Others
Carers Australia advocates and lobbies on a wide range of issues that affect carers, to influence national policies and services. Carers also work collaboratively with other organisations, including their network of state & territory carer organisations, to develop policies, programs, services, and events to improve the lives of Australia’s carers – supporting them and upholding their rights.
Provides information, education and training, resources and referrals to support carers.
Care Search – Palliative Care Knowledge Network
Provides online access to evidence on palliative care.
CarerHelp
The Australian Government has funded two CarerHelp projects.
The second CarerHelp Diversity project will run between 2020 and 2023. As well as maintaining the CarerHelp website, the primary aim of the funding is to ensure that CarerHelp is accessible and able to reach a diverse population of Australian family carers.
CarerHelp: Being an LGBTIQA+ carer
Money Matters
ACON has partnered with Safe Will, an online service where you can start, complete and update your bespoke will at any time. There are no fees until you are ready to submit your will.
Super can be confusing. It’s full of jargon, technical terms, and maths. But it’s not as complicated as you think.
This is a basic guide about superannuation and covers.
Note: This information is general in nature and does not constitute “financial advice” and should the reader wish financial advice, they would need to seek that out.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People
Brings together a range of resources and information to help the health care workforce and carers in providing palliative care for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Culturally safe and responsive care is an essential part of good care.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples Palliative Care Resources
Discussing Choices – Indigenous Advance Care Plans
For many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People, talking about 'death and dying' can be uncomfortable. Culturally, discussing this topic can be perceived as 'tempting it' and viewing images of a person who has died or using their name in conversation can impact that person’s journey.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Discussion Starter – Working Out What’s Right for You.
What is Death Anxiety?
Life, Death, and the Anxiety In-Between
The Order of a Good Death
Psychology Today 2018. Death awareness has a profound impact on our thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
Death anxiety. The worm at the core of mental health
Australian Psychological Society 2018.
What Is Death Anxiety, And How Does It Affect Hospice Patients?
Fear of death is ubiquitous. As far as we know, we are the only species on earth to have the ability to think about our future and to recognize the inevitability of our own demise.
Additional Information
A Cemetery Angel and the American HIV/AIDS Crisis
The collective for Radical Death Studie, by Justin Cook 2019
At a Death Cafe people, often strangers, gather to eat cake, drink tea and discuss death. The objective is 'to increase awareness of death with a view to helping people make the most of their (finite) lives'.
Death, distance and the digital world
“Today she sent me the link to the online memorial. Though she is next door, we are grieving at a distance.” by Amber H. Abbas 2020
Hospice UK’s Dying Matters campaign is working with you to create an open culture in which we’re comfortable talking about death, dying and bereavement. 2012
“For more than 20 years, I have worked as a social worker in settings ranging from family services to emergency psychiatry.” By Colleen Deatherage, 2020
Great site with articles on death practices, planning and awareness from around the world. Some articles you may find particularly interesting.
- LGBTQ+ memorials and monuments from around the world
- Rainbows in the Cemetery: LGBTQ+ Representation on Gravestones
- Trans Death Care Advocacy
Includes US resources – see the applicable sections of our toolkit for resources in NSW.
The Collective for Radical Death Studies
A source of knowledge for how death practitioners, death care professionals, students and scholars alike can all better understand death ways of people of colour and marginalized groups.
The Good Grief Trust is for LGBTQ people and their families, funeral professionals and anyone who works with people from LGBTQ communities. It aims to empowered LGBTQ people so that they can make the choices that are right for them.
The Order of the Good Death - USA
The Order is about making death a part of your life. Staring down your death fears—whether it be your own death, the death of those you love, the pain of dying, the afterlife (or lack thereof), grief, corpses, bodily decomposition, or all the above. Accepting that death itself is natural, but the death anxiety of modern culture is not.
As we rediscover past traditions and ask age old questions, several individuals and organizations are making it their mission to provide culturally competent death care.
By JM, 2021
What happens when trans people talk openly about death, and their plans around their death? By Kitty Perentesis, 2021
“COVID-19 and AIDS: NYC Gays See Parallels, Contrasts” was the headline that ran on U.S. News on April 11, 2020.” By Jaime García-Iglesias, 2021
On green burial and cultural appropriation, 2020
Films, Documentaries and Web
Caitlin Doughty is a mortician, activist, and funeral industry rabble-rouser. Caitlin has an educational YouTube series called Ask a Mortician.
Advance Care Planning: A carer's story, Digital Health 2021
Talk to your patients about adding advance care plan documents to #MyHealthRecord. It’s a safe and secure place to add their wishes or access them if there was a medical emergency and they couldn’t speak for themselves.
Death 2.0: A Guide to Prepping for your Digital Death
Digital Death is a concept that is not given much thought. What happens when you die in this world and the virtual parts of you go on existing?
A 2018 American short documentary film by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman about terminally ill patients in a San Francisco hospital meeting medical practitioners seeking to change the perception around life and death.
End-of-Life Care for LGBT people
Powerful personal experiences from LGB&T people nearing the end-of-life and those caring for them, highlighting the importance of meeting everyone's end-of-life needs sensitively.
Four Tips to Overcome Fear of Death 2019
How to stop worrying about death. (Anxiety; Thanatophobia Treatment)
A 2011 documentary about LGBT people who fought the earliest battles for equality now face so much fear about discrimination, or worse, in health care/long-term care that they hide their past lives, are afraid to ask for help, and die earlier. But a small group of professionals is trying to change that.
What matters to me: Talking about Palliative and End-Of-Life Care
Australian Government Department of Health 2018. It can be difficult to talk about death or dying, but this is an important conversation to have with your loved ones.
What's Wrong with Dying? | Lesley Hazleton | TEDxSeattle 2017
The answer might seem simple, but in the hands of Lesley Hazleton, the question takes us on a surprisingly humorous and thought-provoking journey into what it would mean to live forever. And whether we’d truly want to.
Find out more
Definitions | Ageing as an LGBTQ+ Person | Needing Care | Death Planning | Grief and Bereavement | Caring for Others | Money Matters | Resources