Speakers

Read more

Perron Institute Research Chair in Palliative Care at the University of Western Australia and Perron Institute for Neurological and Translational Science.

Prof. Aoun is an international leader in the promotion and advocacy of public health approaches to palliative care and led this approach for those living with grief and bereavement. She is known as an innovator and a champion of practice and policy translation of public health science for palliative care. Her work on social models in bereavement support has provided empirical evidence to strengthen the Compassionate Communities approach. Samar advocates for a person-centred health and social care. Her research programs on supporting family carers at end of life and the public health approach to bereavement care have informed policy and practice at the national and international levels.

She co-founded and chairs the South West Compassionate Communities Network in Western Australia (WA) and has led the Compassionate Connector Program which offers the practical and social support needed by families with life limiting illnesses. The program significantly improved social connectedness and reduced hospital admissions. She currently chairs Compassionate Communities Australia.

She is a member of Public Health Palliative Care International and the Public Health Palliative Care reference group of the European Association of Palliative Care. She served as member of the International Expert Advisory Group for the development of best practice statements in bereavement care in palliative care in Europe. She is a past president of the MND Association in WA and MND Australia.

Among her awards: the Centenary Medal in 2003 from the Prime Minister of Australia; the 2018 Medal for Excellence from the European Society for Person Centred Healthcare and more recently the 2023 WA Australian of the year.

Read more

Dominic Campbell is a cultural producer interested in the effects of creativity on society. He specializes in the use of celebration as strategy for transformation. He has led Irish Hospice Foundation's Arts and Cultural Engagement programme since its formation during the pandemic. He was formerly Director of Age & Opportunity’s Bealtaine Festival, Ireland’s groundbreaking celebration of creativity in older age, and of Ireland's St Patrick’s Festival. Dominic is a Fellow of the Global Brain Health Institute for whom he is developing Creative Brain Week connecting neuroscientists and artists to address “wicked and sticky" social and health problems. He is an Atlantic Fellow, and Co-founder of Creative Aging International. He is a contributor to the Jameel Arts and Health Lab collaboration with 50 leading researchers producing five Lancet Global specials on the role of arts to reduce the impact of non-communicable diseases due in 2025.

Read more

Pamela Grassau (BSW, MSW, PhD) is an Associate Professor at the School of Social Work at Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. 

Listening and learning for over 20 years in participatory action research with marginalized communities facing interlocking structural barriers while living with chronic and life-limiting illnesses, Pam has learned and written about how care, illness, dying, grief, and loss live within relationships, programs, services, teams, physical spaces, policies, and leadership. Bringing her community-based insights into palliative care education and research, Pam worked for 7 years with multi-professional palliative care clinicians, managers, administrators, and students to build knowledge, competencies, practices, and guidelines that have improved care for patients and families living with advanced illness.  Keen to reconnect with social work and co-lead community-based participatory action research, in 2019 Pam partnered with Compassionate Ottawa and four Ottawa sites (2 community health centers and 2 faith communities) to pilot in Canada the foundational Healthy End of Life Project (HELP), developed by Dr. Andrea Grindrod and colleagues at La Trobe University in Australia.  HELP: Ottawa has advanced knowledge and understanding about how individuals, families, friends, neighbors, communities, workplaces, and faith communities can work collaboratively with social and health care resources, services, and providers, to deliver community-based, equity-focused, trauma-informed, compassionate care.  

Read more

Tina Graven Østergaard is the head of international cooperation at the Danish National Center for Grief (DNCG). DNCG, an independent organization with nearly 25 years of experience, addresses all four tiers of the needs-based bereavement care model through research, practice, education/policy collaborating closely with partners within Denmark and internationally.

Over the past decade, Tina has been an integral part of DNCG’s journey toward the strategic vision: “together in preventing grief from ruining life .” She connects stakeholders across sectors, disciplines, and borders to foster initiatives for change and development aiming to bridge gaps and meet the needs of bereaved people.

Tina and DNCG were the local hosts of the highly collaborative inaugural European Grief Conference 2022 in Copenhagen and they also serve as the host organization for the Bereavement Network Europe, establishing a membership organization bringing together researchers and practitioners in Europe and beyond.

Moreover, Tina has in recent years dedicated substantial time to studying, reporting and working with loss, grief, and suicide bereavement in Greenland, part of the Kingdom of Denmark.

Tina holds an MSc. in International development and cooperation; and before transitioning to the public and mental health arena, she worked for many years in development collaboration with the Global South.

Read more

Prof. Danai Papadatou is an Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology, at the National and Kapodistrian University in Athens. Her clinical experience, research interests, and publications focus on issues related to pediatric palliative care, childhood and family bereavement, community trauma, and the impact of caring for dying and bereaved people upon professionals. She is also the founder and chair of the Board of “Merimna”, a non-governmental association for the care of children and families who encounter illness and death which provides pediatric palliative home care services and bereavement support for children, adolescents, families, schools and communities in Greece. Since 2016, she has been involved in the training and supervision of field workers who support unaccompanied refugee minors and has been conducting extensive research in this field. She has received several international awards for her teaching, research, publications and community service in palliative care, death education, and childhood bereavement support, and has been currently appointed Chair of the National Committee for the development of Palliative Care in Greece. She is a member of several international organizations, among them the International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement, and has served as chair and member of its Board of Directors.

Read more

Dr Emily Harrop is a palliative care researcher at the Marie Curie Research Centre, Cardiff University. Her research interests are; grief and bereavement; the support needs of family caregivers; experiences of living with advanced illness and inequities and inequalities in palliative/bereavement care provision and outcomes. She recently co-led a large UK wide study investigating bereavement experiences during the Covid-19 pandemic and is a co-investigator/work-package lead in the new NIHR funded ‘Equitable Bereavement Care for All (EBCA)’ study, led by colleagues at Kings College London and Sheffield University. Emily is also Editor in Chief of Bereavement: Journal of Grief and Responses to Death.

Read more

Dr. Maarten C. Eisma is an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. His research focuses on clarifying the phenomenology, risk and protective factors, treatment and societal effects of prolonged grief. He has published over 90 scientific articles and book chapters. He is editorial board member of Death Studies and Journal of Loss and Trauma. He co-authored the first Dutch evidence-based multidisciplinary palliative care guideline on grief. In 2023, he received the Association of Death Education and Counseling Research Recognition Award for his contributions to the understanding of grief and bereavement.

Read more

Dr. Martin Lytje is an Associate Professor at the Center for Crisis Psychology, University of Bergen, Norway and a Project Lead at the Danish Cancer Society. For the past 15 years, his research has focused on empowering children to identify their own needs, especially in defining necessary support during family crises like critical illness or bereavement. His expertise has guided childcare institutions in developing and maintaining bereavement responses, and he provides support and training to childcare professionals working with grieving children. Martin has authored numerous articles and books on children and grief, making significant contributions to this important field of study.

Read more

Associate Professor in the Department of Health Psychology at the University of Alicante, Spain. Vice-dean of Postgraduate studies, Transference and Internationalization of the Faculty of Health Sciences. President of the End-of-Life Research Network (Red EOL). Member of the research group PAI CTS-436 “Psychosocial and Transcultural Aspects of Health and Illness” from the University of Granada. Managing Editor in Death Studies. His main research lines include complicated grief, intervention programs related to grief and end-of-life, and disenfranchised griefs.

Read more

Fiona Tuomey is the founder and CEO of HUGG, a national suicide bereavement charity, which she established two years after the death of her 11-year-old daughter to suicide. She established HUGG to provide peer support and resources to those navigating the complexities of loss through suicide.

Fiona has successfully advocated for the inclusion of the ‘’lived voice’’ in the development of training, resources and policies in Ireland and, in conjunction with the National Suicide Research Foundation, in the publication of AfterWords: Ireland’s first survey of people bereaved by suicide in Ireland.

She earned an MSc in Loss & Bereavement in 2018 from the Irish Hospice Foundation and Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. She frequently speaks at conferences and workshops, sharing her insights and experiences to promote a better understanding of suicide bereavement and its impacts on individuals and families.

Read more

Professor Philip Dodd is currently working as Mental Health Policy & Specialist within the Mental Health Unit of the Department of Health, leading the implementation of Sharing the Vision-Ireland’s mental health policy, and Connecting for Life, Ireland’s suicide and self-harm reduction strategy. He is also Clinical Advisor with HSE National Office for Suicide Prevention.

He previously worked as HSE National Clinical Advisor and Clinical Group Lead (Mental Health), and prior to that worked as Clinical Lead for the HSE Mental health of intellectual disability Service Improvement Programme.

Professor Dodd is a Consultant Psychiatrist and full Clinical Professor at Trinity College Dublin. His clinical research interests include suicide prevention, grief and complicated grief and the mental health of intellectual disability.