Academics
Death, Dying, and Mourning: Aging and Applied Thanatology is a 12-credit, online graduate certificate program that can be completed in as little as one year.
The program consists of four courses: two offered during the Fall semester and two offered during the Winter/Spring semester. Each course is online and is just 8 weeks long. Participants will acquire or enhance their knowledge, sensitivity, and advanced skills in supporting and providing specialized care for those facing or coping with death or dealing with terminal illness. Course content will focus on the professional application of information, research, theory, and skills in the field of thanatology with an emphasis on participants’ own personal development as an instrument of healing. The influence of history, culture, human development, psychology, religion, law, and ethics on contemporary attitudes and values related to aging, death, dying, and grief will be examined. The interdisciplinary nature of these topics and the diverse course faculty will ensure an interprofessional experience for enrolled participants.
The Association for Death Education and Counseling® has deemed this program as counting toward the continuing education requirements for the ADEC CT and FT programs.
- All four courses will be offered once each year to enable individuals to complete the program within one year.
- Participants can start the program in the Winter/Spring or in Fall term (there is no Summer admission).
- Participants can take more than a year (up to three years) to complete the program if they wish.
Our goal is to provide you with advanced knowledge and practical training so that what you learn is both relevant and applicable to your professional context. We have designed the program so that you will experience greater comfort and competence addressing the sensitive and complex issues of aging, death, dying, and grieving.
Upon completion, you will be able to do the following:
- Recognize common responses to aging, death, dying, and grief as experienced by adults and children.
- Demonstrate sensitivity to individual, developmental, and cultural variations in addressing and coping with aging, dying, death, and grief.
- Communicate effectively with those who are dying and grieving, as well as recognize barriers that can impede effective communication with these populations.
- Use patient-sensitive methods of palliative care based upon an interdisciplinary perspective.
- Describe and apply empirically-based methods of therapeutic grief intervention.
- Analyze and evaluate legal and ethical principles and dilemmas regarding death, dying, and end-of-life choices.
- Work effectively as an interprofessional team member around issues related to aging, dying, and grief by developing and applying the competencies of interprofessional practices.
- Evaluate the societal, cultural, and religious/ spiritual influences on responses to death and dying.
- Develop greater self-awareness of and coping skills for one’s own experiences of and attitudes toward aging, death, and grief.
- Apply this training for certification through the Association for Death Education and Counseling® (ADEC).