|
Wendy Kurchak |
Course Instructor
|
|
|
 |
Wendy started her career as a registered nurse in a downtown Toronto hospital where she lasted an entire year; she just didn’t find it at all fun to be working with dying and death. So, following the completion of degrees in music and education, Wendy moved to Alberta and spent 30 years as a teacher and Guidance counselor with the Calgary Board of Education.
As students began bringing stories of loss and grief to her, Wendy hoped to pick up some fast and effective strategies for helping grieving kids through enrolment in an online Thanatology course at her alma mater, The University of Western Ontario. She also started volunteering with kid’s grief groups and patients in residential care at Hospice Calgary.
Inspired by the courage she found in dying patients and grieving families, she broadened her experience and education in the area of bereavement and palliative care; in 2010 Wendy became certified in thanatology through the Association for Death Education and Counselling.
Now retired from school teaching, she supports other teachers in their work with grieving kids through her presentations at teacher conventions and conferences.
As an instructor for Life and Death Matters, she’s excited about the impact that class participants are making as they recognize their influence on grieving kids.
In the rest of her life, Wendy has found substitute teaching, especially Kindergarten, an unexpected delight. She continues spending time at Hospice Calgary, and has embraced a new activity – volunteering on the infant floor at the Alberta Children’s Hospital. It’s all magic and full circle. |
|
|
|
