Committee

Bec hails from the Blue Mountains in NSW but made Tasmania her home in 2006. Over her career she has worked in various industries including finance, real estate and the law, but in 2011 she found her path into the funeral industry and stayed there until mid-2017. During that time she worked across the many roles offered in the contemporary funeral industry; including pre planning, administration, mortuary, funeral arranging and directing. Retraining as an End of Life Doula and becoming an independent Funeral Director, she has worked in home based death care and family led funerals ever since.

Bec has also been actively working to advance the mission of You n’ Taboo which is the education and advocacy service she co-founded with her partner in 2016.
In 2018 Bec was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to undertake international research and report on ‘the human relationship to death and ceremony through alternate technologies and approaches’. A link to her Churchill report can be found by clicking here. It was these findings that led her to gather people to form the  Australian Home Funeral Alliance, a charity that was co-founded by some brilliant people eager for change. Bec’s Churchill research culminated in her book, ‘A Heartfelt Undertaking’ and then in 2022 Bec was selected to give a TEDx Talk on home funerals.

Bec has also been the President of the Natural Death Advocacy Network since 2020.

In her spare time, she enjoys reading, singing, a good massage, writing, photography, attending the theatre and travel but what makes her most contented is time with her family and chosen communities. The subjects of death and dying, natural burial and the DIY approach to death care are her passion and she loves being out in the community raising awareness and promoting good honest conversations, she is a dedicated advocate for positive change.

Media and Info: https://linktr.ee/BecLyons

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Website: www.yountaboo.com

Karen has a diverse portfolio of professional experience rooted in community service and advocacy. She spent ten years working in the union movement, specialising in industrial law, advocacy and community campaigning. Karen continues to be committed to justice and to giving a voice to those who need it most.

Karen also worked as a primary school teacher for eight years. Her teaching experience took her from a parent-run community school on the mid-north coast of New South Wales to a remote Northern Territory Indigenous community school. In every classroom, Karen fostered curiosity, resilience and kindness to help students grow both academically and emotionally.

Beyond her professional life, Karen is an avid reader and movie enthusiast (she has even jumped solo out of a plane a dozen times)! She shares her home with Amber, her 8-year-old rescue dog from Darwin, whose companionship brightens her days.

Karen works as an Independent Funeral Celebrant and continues to undertake mentoring and professional development, with a particular interest in ritual theory and design and family-centred ceremony. Karen is passionate about death literacy and navigating the evolving landscape of death care.

Karen has served as an ordinary committee member of NDAN for the past two years and has recently been appointed Vice President. She established the NDAN Website Review Sub-Committee, which undertook a usability review of the website and reorganised the Resources page to make information easier to find and use.

Karen is also Secretary of the Australian Home Funeral Alliance (AHFA), and is committed to supporting the development of a more informed, connected and compassionate approach to death, dying and bereavement.

Renée is an emerging death worker who currently works as communications professional. With a background in public health and experience working in not-for-profit organisations in the medical sector, she specialises in communications and engagement; helping to make complex and sensitive topics easier to understand.

Her deep respect for, and curiosity about, death, dying and grief has grown through training, volunteering and community engagement. She is a licensed Grief First Aid instructor and has undertaken end-of-life doula and deathwalker training. While living in the UK, she volunteered with Cruse Bereavement Support in co-facilitating online bereavement sessions.

Renée is particularly interested in the language we use when talking about death, dying and grief, and in how the words and stories we use can shape the way we understand these experiences. She is passionate about creating spaces for more open and human conversations about death, and helping people feel more informed and comfortable exploring their choices around the end of life.

Outside of her work in this space, Renée is happiest near the ocean. A scuba diver and longtime lover of coastal places, she spent several years living in Lofoten in northern Norway and exploring the Portuguese coast while based in Lisbon. She is looking forward to spending more time by the water in her upcoming travels around Australia (once her van is kitted out!).

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linkedin.com/in/renée-king

Annie is a Deathcare Worker, Funeral Director, Funeral Celebrant and Death Doula based in Meanjin (Brisbane). Her work is about helping people understand their options, make informed choices and feel more confident navigating death and dying.

Annie is Treasurer of the Natural Death Advocacy Network, bringing her professional experience, financial skills and passion for doing death differently to the organisation's work. She believes there isn't one right way to care for a person who has died or to create a funeral, and is passionate about supporting people to find an approach that feels right for them.

Annie is particularly interested in natural and environmentally conscious approaches to deathcare, and in creating more open conversations about death. She also brings a creative perspective to her work, with a background in performance, visual storytelling and immersive theatre.

For Annie, good deathcare starts with information, genuine choice and the freedom to ask questions.

website:https://grassrootsdeathcare.com.au/

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IG: @grassroots_deathcare

Fiona has volunteered and worked for a number of marine conservation and environmental organisations throughout her property career. She has a Bachelor of Economics from Sydney University and a Master of Property at UTS.

After moving down from Sydney to the South Coast of NSW in 2016 she started the journey of establishing Australia’s first 100% natural and conservation burial ground – inspired by a documentary called Will for Woods where an Australian documentary maker called Amy Browne followed a man in America who was dying of cancer and his pursuit of finding a natural burial ground. Fiona says “It seemed like the best way to protect habitat for wildlife and also provide a beautiful place to visit loved ones, a gift to the planet.”

Walawaani Way Conservation Burial is an 18-hectare site that will provide habitat for glossy black cockatoos, koalas and lyrebirds. Walawaani Way aims to establish world’s best practice alongside NDAN’s guidance and mentorship. Fiona is striving to make conservation natural burials the number one choice for all Australians by communicating that this is what humans have done for 99% of our existence as is simply a part of the cycle of life. 

Fiona would love to hear from you, so please reach out!

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www.walawaaniway.com

Phone: 0402 892 759

Kerryn Davey is a Death Practitioner, End-of-Life Doula, and Home Funeral Guide living and working on Yuin Country, on the unceded lands of the Djiringanj people. She is the founder of Call of the Kookaburra: Compassionate Care Services, supporting individuals, families, and communities to approach death with clarity, confidence, and care.

Kerryn’s work centres on home-based dying, family-led death care, and natural burial planning. She supports people in creating meaningful rituals and ceremonies that give their grief expression through action. Passionate about community empowerment, Kerryn helps families remain actively involved in caring for their dying and deceased loved ones while building stronger local knowledge around dying, death, grief, and bereavement.

Kerryn’s pathway into this work is both personal and professional. Before her life partner, Jared, died suddenly at home in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, in 2022, they had spoken honestly about death and what each would need. Those conversations helped Kerryn feel prepared—even in sudden loss—and showed her the profound value of presence and compassionate community support.

Kerryn completed her End-of-Life Doula training with the Australian Doula College in 2024. She actively advocates for accessible, publicly managed natural burial options in NSW and co-facilitates monthly Life and Death Conversation Circles across the Far South Coast of NSW.

Website: https://kookaburracompassionatecare.com.au/

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Mb: 0400 251 735

Esther Guinea is an End of Life Doula with a background as a Registered Nurse and Midwife.

Prior to her career in Nursing, Esther had a variety of jobs in both the Northern Territory and Victoria, including working as a music instructor and a horticulturalist.

Her varied work and travel history has led Esther to value inclusivity. She supports all people regardless of age, gender, neurotype, cultural and religious backgrounds and believes everyone has the strength to follow their own path – but we don’t have to do it alone.

Esther’s calm, practical and down to earth approach enables her to encourage individuals to explore their preferences and wishes while they are living well, living with a life limiting-illness, are frail, ageing or at End of Life She also provides support to family and significant others in grief and bereavement. In advocating for her clients, Esther provides practical, emotional, social and spiritual support that honours the individual, their family and friends at this time of transition.

Esther Lives in Northern Victoria, on a small rural block where she joyfully tends her permaculture garden and orchard with the help of her dog Tess, her small flock of chickens and, occasionally, her daughter and granddaughter.

Esther’s End of Life Doula business – Living & Leaving – services an area within 100km + radius of Rochester and includes cross border communities as far north as Deniliquin NSW, Castlemaine in the south, Heathcote in the east and Kerang/Swan Hill in the west. Esther is active in the community, regularly hosting talks and providing practical end of life care. Esther is  passionate about living well to the final breath, improving death literacy and home based After Death Care.

Phone: 0459 892 697
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Rani is a Counsellor and End-of-Life Doula based on Dharawal Country in the Illawarra region. Her work is devoted to walking alongside people through life’s thresholds: moments of change, loss, becoming and completion. She offers a gentle space for people to be witnessed, find steadiness and make meaning in what is unfolding.

Rani has spent 15 years directly supporting people in Disability and Aged Care, a path that naturally evolved into her work as a Counsellor and End-of-Life Doula. Both roles are grounded in presence, compassion and respect for the many ways we meet change.

Her connection to this work began early. At nine years old, Rani experienced the first of three catastrophic brain haemorrhages following a schoolyard accident, an experience that brought her face-to-face with her own mortality at a very young age. It has deeply shaped the way she moves through the world, leaving her constantly aware of life’s fragility and the promise of death.

Rani joined the Natural Death Advocacy Network as a Committee Member to give back to a body of work she believes in wholeheartedly.

Outside of work, Rani is an avid reader and music enthusiast who loves a good boogie! She’s also happiest travelling and chasing adventure.

For Rani, good end-of-life care begins with gentle inquiry, deep listening and genuine connection.

Danni Petkovic is a Death Literacy Educator and Mortality Doula, and the founder of Liminal Being. Her work treats death literacy as a public health issue, reaching people before they enter formal care systems. Drawing on the Death Literacy Institute's SEAK model of skills, experience, action and knowledge, she works to build people's capacity to plan, care and grieve on their own terms, embracing mortality as a pathway to gratitude and zest for life.

Danni's path into this work began in 2022, when she supported her brother Shayne through a life changing diagnosis and subsequent death.

As a doula, she has supported people dying at home, in aged care and in hospital, and advocates for early palliative care involvement.

Danni designs, delivers and presents death and grief literacy education nationally and internationally for community, tertiary and professional audiences, including a pilot bringing death doulas into medical education. She  managed a national campaign building community support for death literacy, and created a national grants program supporting grassroots organisations to grow compassionate communities.

Danni volunteers running Death Cafes and community death literacy workshops in Sydney, and at Bear Cottage Children's Hospice. She is a steward with the Good Death Impact Network and sits on the advisory board of Funeral Commons.

Nicole Grundy, End of Life Doula, Independent Funeral Director & Celebrant.

From Melbourne Nicole is an independent non medical End of-Life Doula (EOLD), Independent Funeral Director & Celebrant  in practice since 2020, and the founder of Death Care at Home, support care services established in 2024. Nicole believes in the importance of autonomy, personal choice and peace of mind planning, knowing that decisions can be made without informed knowledge.  She has a passion for personalised tributes, vigil and community outreach in death literacy education and is peer facilitator of Australia’s first Voluntary Assisted Dying national Grief Support group program partnered with Dying with Dignity Victoria and Griefline Australia.

Nicole co-creates genuine, personalised funeral services, memorials, awakes and home funerals that reflect the individuality of the person being honoured. She is committed to having real, open conversations about life, death, and what truly matters, helping families and solos feel supported, heard, and confident and heard.   Her approach balances respect for tradition with a willingness to thoughtfully reimagine it.

Nicole believes strongly in choice, transparency, and individuality. As an EOLD, she also offers dying, death, and bereavement consultancy with people who want clarity, connection, and care at every stage of life, including those planning their own farewell.