Music, Arts, Radio

Christel Lukoff, MSW, Ph.D.
707- 763-3504
Petaluma, CA

Psychotherapist and hospice social worker Christel Lukoff
shares traditional folktales that metaphorically express
many of the feelings and issues encountered in grief. The
stories remind us of the healing power of memories and of
ways to find an ongoing relationship with a loved one who
has died. Christel’s commentaries deepen and transform our
understanding of grief and remind us how love and loss are
interwoven. To order CDs from Christel or to schedule a
storytelling presentation, contact Christel.

A gressroots project to improve end of life care, this film sheds light on the 21st century American struggle with communication and preparation at the end-of-life. Throughout the film, there are intimate accounts of the emotional, spiritual, physical and social burdens associated with the historical shift that has occurred with dying. Forty years ago, most people experienced a quick death, but today we are more likely to suffer a slow, incremental dying process.

Consider the Conversation examines multiple perspectives on end-of-life care and includes information and experiences gathered from interviews with patients, family members, doctors, nurses, clergy, social workers, and national experts on death and dying. The film includes in-depth interviews with 40+ individuals from California, Illinois, Indiana, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont and Wisconsin. 62 “person on the street” interviews were also conducted in New York City in April of 2010.

My fiber work focuses on the universal issues of age and mortality. By honoring the framework of aging and seeing death as a natural part of life, my figurative images lift the invisibility that surrounds these subjects. This work starts a dialogue that is essential to our times.

The Finding Our Way: Living With Dying in America national newspaper series appeared in more than 160 newspapers, reaching millions of Americans (www.findingourway.net). That series consisted of 15 articles created by a distinguished group of authors and editors, and was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels, and Charitable Leadership Foundations.


This hybrid web-cdrom course offers a new opportunity for Americans to learn from the widely read newspaper series. The 15 Finding Our Way articles, and the inspiring stories they contain, are the heart of this course. In addition, the Finding Our Way authors have contributed discussion questions, additional resources, and insights that are important components of the course. The discussion questions can be used for small group discussion or for individual reflection, and the course can be taken at any time and at any pace that works for you. Upon successful completion of the course and the final examination, an electronic certificate of completion will be issued to you. No continuing education units are available for this learning experience. We hope you enjoy the course and find the information it contains useful to you in your personal life or in your work as a professional or volunteer caregiver.

Growth House Radio is entertainment with a mission: to improve the quality of compassionate care for people who are dying. They offer several different channels with music and easy-listening education features on end-of-life care. You can listen to Growth House Radio while you continue to surf the web.

A series of three, hour-long audio documentaries designed for national radio broadcast. Distributed by PRI, Public Radio International.

This series looks at the care given by doctors, hospitals, clergy, family and friends to people at the end of life. It examines the barriers to good care that arise from cultural misunderstanding, from fear over the use of morphine and other drugs, from lack of funding to pay for good programs. It provides ideas, examples and inspiration for those who are searching for a good path on the journey to death.

Originally created as three, hour-long audio documentaries for national radio broadcast, this wonderful education resource is now available on CD. It will make a great training tool for hospice volunteers, health care professionals, and anyone else who wants to learn about key issues in end-of-life care in an entertaining, easy-to-absorb format.

The series draws from over 80 hours of tape and includes remarkable moments with people who are facing death, their families and those who are helping them along the journey. While the stories are personal, the themes are universal as we all struggle to come to terms with the passing of friends, family members, and ultimately, ourselves. It examines the barriers to good care that arise from cultural misunderstanding, from fear over the use of morphine and other drugs, and from lack of funding to pay for good programs. It provides ideas, examples and inspiration for those who are searching for a good path on the journey to death.

Hold Your Breath - A Journey into Cross-Cultural Medicine
Film Directed by Maren Grainger-Monsen, MD Check PBS for local broadcasting times in your region. Northern CA KQED and KRCB broadcasting in April, 2007. A lovely and moving meditation on the clash between religion, culture and modern medicine. Produced by Stanford Center for BioMedical Ethics, Program in Bioethics and Film

Dr. Monsen is the film maker who also produced: Vanishing Line about her journey with a hospice chaplain caring for the dying; and Grave Words a entertaining film about use of resusciation for training medical students and others.

Prior to the 20th century, most Americans prepared their dead for burial with the help of family and friends, but today most funerals are part of a multimillion-dollar industry run by professionals. "A Family Undertaking" explores the growing home-funeral movement by following several families in their most intimate moments as they reclaim the end of life, forgoing a typical mortuary funeral to care for their loved ones at home.

A project on viewing death and dying in interdisciplinary perspective. A project of the
Doreen B. Townsend Center for the Humanities UC Berkeley
Christina M. Gillis, Ph.D.Project Director.
Seeing the Difference is sponsored by the Townsend Center for the Humanities, with the generous support of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund, the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation,
and the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation