About Helene
Helene has been volunteering as an Event Volunteer Counsellor with the SA Death Festival since last year, bringing with her more than 15 years of experience in palliative care and bereavement support. At festival events, she offers a calm presence for those who may feel distressed and listens to people who wish to share their stories of loss.
Helene reflects on the privilege of meeting people in vulnerable times: “It has helped me practice my counselling skills and reminded me of the importance of living in and enjoying the present.”
Q&A Interview:
Disclaimer: The views expressed are the opinions and thoughts of our interviewees, reflecting on their own experiences and views.
For this role, my responsibility is supporting the Death Festival events as a counsellor, just in case someone feels distressed or is being triggered by the content of the festival. But it is rare to see someone feeling overwhelmed, more people just come up and share their stories about their loss.
So what I do mainly is to tune in to people’s stories and griefs, be present for them.
It was 15 to 20 years ago, I attended a Buddhist workshop about death and dying, that inspired me to work in this field. The basic principles in Buddhism, such as embracing death as part of life, and the kindness that it emphasized, are very appealing to me.
Meeting people in vulnerable times is such a privilege. It not just helped me practice my counselling skills but also made me more aware of how important living in and enjoying the present is. This encourages me to reflect on my life.
It is hard to answer this for other people in terms of what they received because the benefit for people is so individualized.
In my paid roles, I received supervision and professional development training as part of my role. As for this role in the Death Festival event, which is once a year, the counselling requirements are managed by me. When I have been a volunteer counsellor in another organization which involved weekly sessions they provided professional supervision for all counsellors, which is an important part of maintaining professional registration.
Have well trained and well supported volunteers.
Do it, just do it. It is so rewarding to work with people at that stage. If you decide this is not for you after trying it, at least you have given it a try.
