Become a Losstender Online

Next Cohort: Starting January 2026

Duration: 8 weeks

Location: Virtual

Cost: $500CAD

Enroll here

How to open up space for grief to flow and healing to take hold, wherever you are.


An 8-week online course that will help you transform your organization, family, and community’s practices and narratives around loss. You will learn new ways to understand grief and how to meet it in ways that feed connection, preventing cycles of crisis and isolation

About the
Cohort

What’s offered

Syllabus

Grief & loss are everywhere: it’s what makes us human!

But confusingly, grief can be a profoundly isolating experience, especially when our losses go unmarked by those around us. Culture shapes our response to loss, and many of the practices that have held communities together in difficult times have fallen by the wayside. Becoming a Losstender will offer you a toolkit for re-building a culture that is grief-aware, caring, and soulful… even in the workplace! 

As a Losstender, you are not a therapist or spiritual guide: you are a companion and a maker of space… for reflection, expression, commemoration, and connection. You will tap into your own expressive side, whether that’s artistic or somatic (no mastery required). Over the course of 8 weeks, you will begin to test new narratives and practices in your own context, as part of your learning journey. You do not need to have a particular context in mind, you can practice with friends, neighbours, or strangers; the commitment to trying is more important!

We have created this course to share the Losstender experience more broadly. Here in Edmonton and Vancouver, Canada, the Losstender has been an enormously popular and rewarding role. Both the training, the supportive cohort, and in the in-context practice have given Losstenders the confidence to play new roles in their community, forging new and authentic relationships across difference.

Weekly 2- hour Zoom calls

Tuesdays 5:30-7:30 PM MST (UTC -7)

Runs January 13- March 3, 2026

Plus

  • A bonus Reunion Call on April 7, 2026, 5:30-7:30 PM MDT (UTC -6)

  • An offer of an additional, free 30- minute 1:1 coaching call to be booked by the participant

  • On-demand support from the Soloss Circle of Support: a group of cultural & spiritual community leaders, therapeutic practitioners, and seasoned Losstenders

Week Topic
1
Introductions
Exploring dominant & alternative narratives of grief, loss and healing
2
Loss as a universal human experience +
Types of loss & underlying needs
3
Disenfranchised grief, grief myths + 4 components of healing
4
4 core aspects of the Losstender role + Prototyping mindset
In-context practice #1
5
Ethics & boundaries from a non-institutional perspective + Trusting ourselves
In-context practice #2
6
Self & collective care
In-context practice #3
7
Practice Losstending with each other
In-context practice #4
8
Closing celebration, shareback &
Send-off ritual
13
Reunion call: how is your practice growing?

Hear from previous Losstenders

  • "I’ve learned to hold space for other people, and make offerings without being so focused on the outcome. I feel much more connected to my own self, and I've realized that I have to remain in the ground of my being."

    Erin Pettifor - Body and Movement Losstender 2022

  • "For me, this experience is huge - what potential there is for humans to be creative together, how it can be kind of subversive, because we're at this point now where we're so disconnected. It’s a really wonderful way to be together”

    Dana Wylie - Musical Losstender 2022

  • "I was going through grief, and I believed Soloss was perfect for my own healing. I think we heal in community. Instead of going through it alone, my intention was just like I want to help put that energy into something. "

    Yusi Hunter - Visual Art Losstender 2022

  • "The fact that I was invited to sort of sit with grief as a concept and other people's loss and things like that, while I was being very directly confronted with my own was a really precious opportunity to me and felt serendipitous. "

    Colin Matty - Writing Losstender 2022

This course is for you if…

You want to make an impact in your family, community, or workplace by opening up space to acknowledge loss, grief, and its impact, and invite healing.

You are committed to practicing what you are learning in your own context (requires no special setup or arrangements), working through your own natural discomforts and fears.

You want to contribute to and be supported by your peer cohort and a Circle of Support, by fully participating in live calls.

Your Hosts


  • Hayley Sallis has dedicated her career to strengthening community care in end of life and to address disenfranchised grief and loss, experienced by fringe communities, using creative and embodied approaches to healing. Her practice empowers the communities she works alongside by honouring and uplifting their stories of loss and resistance that too often go unheard.

  • Ruth Ann grew up on Couchiching First Nation, Treaty 3 Territory in northwestern Ontario, with fond memories of Rainy Lake—swimming, blueberry picking, and walking across the frozen lake. She moved to Alberta in 1979.

    A proud Anishinaabe Quay, Ruth Ann carries her spirit name from Walter Linklater, Baapiinawaakesic bun, and her Nêhiyaw name from Harry Watchmaker, Kokoko quay and Kaakeenamistotem quay.

    The early loss of her dad and Coco left a deep mark, shaping her lifelong journey toward peace and connection. She still speaks with them in moments of challenge.

    Ruth Ann sees Soloss as part of life’s sacred journey—an honour to walk beside those who mourn and to hear stories of loss, resilience, and hope. She offers traditional cultural support as a proud member of the Circle of Support team and continues to learn from her traditional teachers.

    She holds an M.Sc. in Marriage and Family Therapy.

Interested ? Enroll now!

DEADLINE: TIME