About

This site is to share information and resources about Home Funerals. There is no charge to be listed on the site, and it is funded and maintained by Donna Belk and Sandy Booth of Austin, Texas.

Rather than being a voice of only one organization, this site seeks to include Home Funeral Guides and information from many organizations into one easy-to-visit source.  We offer resource for people in the United States and Canada.

Please contact us if you have suggestions or comments about our web site.

Below are definitions of  services that are offered on this site

• Home Funeral Educator:  Teaches home funeral guides and family supporters the art of home funeral vigils and natural after death care

• Home Funeral Guide:  Educates and guides families through the process of a home funeral vigil
• Home Funeral Supporter:  Volunteer advocate within a community who chooses to support a family or friend though a home funeral vigil

---

A Code of Ethics and Initial Standards of Practice for the Vocation of Home Funeral Guide

The aim of this document is to help home funeral guides practice with integrity by clearly defining our goals and ethical responsibilities in relation to our clients, our peers, to the law and to society. It requires us to maintain high standards of personal integrity, competence and practice.

Definition of a home funeral:
This is a family or community-centered response to death and after-death care.  Through many millennia this was the way we used to care for our dead, within the context of the family or the community.  Most state laws support the right of the family to care for a loved one who has died. Depending on the specifics of each state’s law, families and communities may play a key role in:

• Planning and carrying out after-death rituals or ceremonies (such as laying out the deceased and home visitation of the body)
• Preparing the body for burial or cremation
• Filing of death-related paperwork such as the death certificate
• Transporting the deceased to the place of burial or cremation
• Facilitating the final disposition such as digging the grave

Home funerals may occur within the family home or not.  Some nursing homes, for example, may allow the family to care for the deceased after death.  The emphasis is on encouraging and educating on minimal, non-invasive, and environmentally-friendly care of the body.

Definition of a home funeral guide:
The role of a home funeral guide is to educate and empower families to exercise the innate right of caring for their own dead. This is also a mission.

Home funeral guides do not seek to conduct the after-death care themselves. Home funeral guides believe that after-death care is most meaningful when carried out by family and friends of the deceased. Home funeral guides, therefore, seek to minimize the involvement of anyone other than family and friends in after-death care. They are GUIDES and not directors.

Fees levied in exchange for the education and empowerment of families or for ministerial services are in accordance with time spent and are in keeping with the fair business practice of fair compensation for services rendered.

Home funeral guides are advocates for family-centered and family-led funerals. They speak in favor of protecting those rights. They impart the knowledge that families may need in order to be able to exercise the innate right of caring for their own dead.

Home funeral guides also educate on the benefits of the home funeral.

Furthermore and specifically:
A home funeral guide will always practice with respect, sensitivity, integrity, clarity, and calmness.

A home funeral guide will maintain high standards of personal conduct in his/her role educating and guiding families conducting home funerals.

A home funeral guide will maintain familiarity with local and state laws, ordinances, and regulations, especially pertaining to family rights in caring for deceased persons.

Home funeral guides will avail themselves of opportunities for continuing education.

The home funeral guide will seek and maintain affiliations with related supportive organizations and associations, and with other home funeral guides.

The home funeral guide will conduct community outreach and education on natural death care, home funerals, and green burial.

A home funeral guide will build liaison relationships with local funeral directors, in order to engage them as necessary to meet a family’s after death care needs.

A home funeral guide will build relationships with local officials charged with the care of deceased persons and their families, such as vital records department personnel, coroners and their deputies.

A home funeral guide will maintain familiarity with the operations, procedures and documentation requirements associated with the work of such officials.