Steps to become a Funeral Industry Insider

As a funeral officiant we are an important person in the Funeral Industry but we are only one piece of a larger jigsaw. Families like to work with people who know their field and so part of your responsibility of being a professional funeral celebrant is to become an industry insider.

Here are 5 steps you could take to achieve this:

Step 1 - Arrange a tour of your local crematoria.

As a funeral celebrant you will be mainly working at your local crematorium or crematoria (plural). Consequently, as a new funeral celebrant and before you make any visits to local Funeral Directors, you should become familiar with how each crematoria works by phoning and arranging a visit.

In the most welcome of places, crematoria staff will give you a full tour, normally on a quiet morning or quiet afternoon (in the winter months this may not exist). The things you will want to know about include:

• the location of the vestry (changing and waiting room for officiants)

• if they use Wesley Media or Obitus music system

• what buttons & controls they have on the officiant’s lectern

• what webcast & audio-visual facilities the chapel has

It is a real bonus if your tour also includes the “engine” room, in other words, exactly what happens to the coffin after your service. How many furnaces do they have? Do they have an extra large one for larger coffins, how they gather the cremated remains & place them in the cremulator. How do they store & distribute the ashes.

Step 2 - Additional training with Wesley Media or Obitus.

Wesley Media & Obitus frequently provide additional training for funeral professionals. It is largely aimed at Funeral Directors and Funeral Arrangers, however, they will offer slots for online training for new celebrants too. Whilst you do not need to know how to order music because this is the job of the FD or arranger, knowing what they need to know and do will help you connect & make life easier for them. Check out Celebrant Training School’s You Tube channel as I will be shortly posting video excerpts of music training we provide to students.

Step 3 - shadow a Funeral Director or funeral worker

There is nothing quite like work shadowing someone to see working life as they see it. Before becoming a Funeral Celebrant I spent 3 days shadowing a Funeral Director and their staff. It gave me an invaluable insight into how they collect people who have died from care homes, hospital mortuaries & private residences. How a Funeral Director cares for, prepares and stores the bodies of those who have died. It gave a valuable insight into the initial meeting that arrangers have with Next-of-kin before they appoint an officiant to do the service. It gave me an appreciation of the waiting and chasing FDs have to do in order to secure a “Green Form” which the law requires before a cremation can take place. It shared with me the perspective of the driver and coffin bearer at a funeral service. It also taught me about direct cremations.

I personally was more comfortable doing this work shadowing with a company who operated in a neighbouring city and not where I was wanting to work as a funeral celebrant. This made it easier for Funeral Directors to talk to me about my request. I wasn’t trying to “get in with them” for future celebrant work. It was simply a learning exercise which they were not made to feel obliged to agree to or not.

Step 4 - Attend a Death Café

A Death Café is an event where people are invited to speak openly and listen to others talk about death and dying. Whilst primarily organised for people who have suffered loss and are living with grief, your attendance will give you additional learning about working with bereaved families. It is likely that you will learn about the experiences others have had when dealing with funeral directors and officiants. You will hear stories of good and poor practice and how this impacts upon a person in grief.

Step 5 - Volunteer at a nursing home or hospice.

If you do not have a lot of experience of people who are near death, it can give you a valuable insight if you volunteer to help out at a nursing or care home or local hospice. Not only could your provide much needed company to a person who may not have many visitors, it will help you develop a vocabulary & a range of perspectives that may not have previously occurred to you.

Ethically, it is important that you are not or even perceived to be hunting for business. What it will do is give you a larger window into the community to which you want to serve.