FTC staff opinion: Funeral providers may discount basic services fee in cases of home funerals

According to the Funeral Rule of the Federal Trade Commission, a funeral provider may charge a "basic services fee" to recover overhead and staff service costs involved in "arranging any funeral." This fee typically covers such expenses as the arrangement conference, the securing of the death certificate and building expenditures. If the fee is non-declinable -- as is almost always the case -- the provider must disclose either that the fee will be added to the cost of funeral goods and services selected (most common practice) or that it is included in the price of the provider's caskets (rarely practiced).

Home funerals in which the family opts to use only a few specific services of a commercial provider typically break the norm, because in those cases, the family is serving in effect as the funeral director, handling most of the tasks normally bundled into the basic services fee. It seems reasonable, then, that funeral homes should be free to charge less than their customary basic services fee to such families, but the Federal Trade Commission never had addressed that particular issue. As a matter of fact, most funeral homes do already discount the basic services fee for four required basic services -- forwarding remains, receiving remains, direct cremation and immediate burial -- although past language from the Federal Trade Commission had not clearly indicated whether this is an acceptable practice.

Some months ago, I wrote Craig Tregillus, who oversees enforcement of the Funeral Rule for the Federal Trade Commission, to obtain a staff opinion on whether funeral providers may discount their basic services fee in the case of home funerals that make use of only a few commercial funeral goods or services. About the same time, Lisa Carlson of Funeral Ethics Organization wrote him, questioning whether the Rule allows a reduced fee in the case of forwarding remains, receiving remains, immediate burials and direct cremations. Also, Ohio attorney T. Scott Gilligan, representing the National Funeral Directors Association, wrote Tregillus arguing that the Rule has always permitted a reduced fee for certain services.

In a response dated November 24, 2009, Tregillus' staff concurs that a funeral provider may discount the basic services fee for receiving remains, forwarding remains, immediate burials and direct cremations. Similarly, the fee may also be reduced in the case of a home funeral that uses fewer services. The letter states:

The Rule does not address home funerals because they were not considered at the time of the initial rulemaking proceeding or the subsequent amendment proceeding. Home funerals are analogous to the four basic services, however, because they likewise involve reduced or minimal use of a funeral provider's facilities and staff. As a matter of enforcement policy, therefore, and consonant with the fundamental goals of the Rule, staff will not object to a reduction in the basic services fee if it is commensurate with the limited use of the provider's facilities and services.

Many funeral consumer advocates have questioned whether a basic services fee should be allowed at all, given that the spirit of the Rule is to allow consumers to pick and choose only those goods and services they desire and to provide transparency in the pricing of funeral goods and services. The basic services fee is the only item on the general price list that the funeral provider may make non-declinable. This fee has tended to increase at a faster rate than prices for other funeral goods and services, providing funeral providers with a mechanism to increase profit margins with limited transparency, since the values of the goods and services bundled into the fee are not itemized.

-- Holly Stevens

Home funerals essay featured in Christian Century

Our essay on home funerals turned out to be a "cover story" in the Christian Century! Click here to see the online version.

It has been a while...

...since I've posted to the blog. My younger son moved here to join us in North Carolina while attending a local community college, and I've been relishing his more permanent presence. But I'm wanting to alert our readers to a happy development:

I learned a few weeks ago that an essay related to home funerals that I had submitted on speculation months ago to the Christian Century will indeed be published in the October 6 issue. The Christian Century is considered by many to be the flagship magazine of mainline Protestantism in America. My essay barely mentions Undertaken With Love, but encourages religious leaders and faith communities to view the home funeral and natural burial movements as opportunities for the Church to sanction simpler, less commercial funeral practices. Getting faith communities more involved with the home funeral movement is one of my dearest aims.Best to all....

Questions You've Wanted to Ask a Funeral Director But Didn't Know Whom to Ask

Just a note about something new coming to the Undertaken With Love site. We're in conversation with several licensed funeral directors in various parts of the nation who have a track record of being supportive of family-directed funerals or who serve primarily as home funeral guides but also are licensed as funeral directors. We're inviting them to serve as consultants to our site who can address questions related to home funerals that families would like to pose to a professional mortician.

Here are a few questions that come to my mind:

• How can a family go about finding a flexible funeral home to assist on a very limited scale in a home funeral?
• In terms of a home funeral, what are the realistic options following an autopsy?
• What are the appropriate precautions for a death involving "X" condition (e.g., MRSA infection)?

In the meantime, let's gather some questions to pose. If you have a question you've longed to ask a mortician, please email them to us!

Michael Jackson to be Buried in Gold Plated Coffin

From "Connecting Directors," a social networking Internet forum for funeral professionals:

Michael Jackson to be Buried in Gold Plated Coffin: "Michael Jackson's final flamboyance will be the vehicle in which he's delivered to his final resting place: This 14 karat goldplated custom casket that will be the center of attention at Tuesday's memorial service at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The $25,000 container from Batesville Casket Company ('because every family deserves a Batesville') is made of solid bronze, plated with 14-karat gold, and polished to a mirror finish. It's the same model in which James Brown was buried. No question about it, it'll be the fanciest coffin in the graveyard."

The Jackson family has every right to choose the casket of their choice. But I have to say I have much more respect for the choice Billy and Ruth Graham made when they selected their own caskets -- identical birch plywood ones built by prisoners of Louisiana State Penitentiary and sold for only $215 a piece. The Grahams' son, Franklin, had seen the caskets while visiting the prison on a mission and was struck by their simple dignity.

I have some sympathy for morticians whose profession requires them to be flexible in meeting the expectations of customers with wildly variant tastes in final things. Not all of them attempt to push conspicuously consumptive casket models onto their bewildered clients. At some point, we the consumers have to accept some responsibility, too, for the choices we make. As a person of faith, I would like to see more religious leaders take the higher ground in encouraging a funeral etiquette that is simpler, more affordable, more gentle on the earth, and ultimately more sacred than what we too often see practiced in America.

Cemetery in an arid land continued

Same cemetery and neighborhood down the street from each other as yesterdays' post.

Cemeteries in an arid land

This Southern Utah cemetery for the dead is just down the street from this neighborhood for the living. Could it be that cities are stuck in the idea of what a cemetery must be?

A desert cemetery (without water or mowing) could be made a lovely and restful place of repose. Can you imagine a cemetery out of town, against a cliff or surrounded by select native trees. Sure there may not be the hum of motors nearby or chemical laden green grass to sit on but there may be a gentle breeze that greets your face or a lizard that comes to keep you company as you recline on a boulder or soft sand to contemplate your loved one.

Influencing Hospital Protocols

One obstacle facing some families serving as their own funeral directors when a death occurs in a hospital or long term care facility is ignorance on the part of employees who are not aware that a body can be released into the custody of the next-of-kin. Accustomed to calling a funeral home at such times, employees sometimes assert that this practice is mandated. Even an assertive family member, certain of his or her rights, can find mounting a defense at such a tender moment too daunting. We need to be advocates for change in this area, so that hospitals and nursing homes are prepared for this eventuality.

The Joint Commission (previously the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations) is an independent, not-for-profit organization that evaluates and accredits more than 16,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States. As the nation's predominant standards-setting and accrediting body in health care, it exerts considerable influence on hospital and long-term care facility practices. So when one of my relatives, a former Internist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, suggested to me recently that I might try to get The Joint Commission to develop protocols for releasing the body to the next-of-kin, I realized immediately how helpful that might be for the home funeral movement. He suggested additionally that if we could position this as a human rights issue, we might find more support.

I wish I knew someone who knows someone at The Joint Commission who could embrace this issue as their own. But I did succeed last week in finding out who would be the person responsible for considering such a request: Dr. Robert Wise, who is the commission's vice president of standards and survey methods. Today I wrote and mailed this letter to him:

Dear Dr. Wise:

I am the project leader for Undertaken With Love, a noncommercial endeavor of a group of home funeral advocates across America aimed at increasing public awareness of a family’s right to care for its own dead until burial or cremation. Though still an uncommon choice, home funerals are slowly picking up in towns where groups have formed to support them. Those who arrange such funerals find that participating creatively in the final care of the body gives them a sense of having honored the loved one and promotes their own adjustment, allowing them to spend unhurried time with the body in the comfort and privacy of the home. It is also a very affordable option.

One obstacle to the practice, however, is the lack of protocols in hospitals and long-term care facilities for releasing a body into the custody of the next-of-kin rather than a commercial funeral provider. We have seen instances where a family has prepared for a home funeral well in advance, only to encounter hospital employees who are unaware of the family’s right to care for its own dead who insist that calling a funeral home is mandated. Even for an assertive individual certain of his or her rights, the notion of mounting a rigorous defense at such a tender moment is daunting. Too often, the family caves in, and a commercial funeral provider is summoned.

As you can imagine, this amounts to a human rights issue, given that only six states require the involvement of a licensed funeral provider at some point during the funeral process (Connecticut, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska and New York). It would be most helpful if The Joint Commission would establish recommended protocols for releasing a body into the custody of the next-of-kin. If it would be helpful, I could provide you with a few examples from hospitals that are especially progressive in this respect.

I’m enclosing our guide to home funerals in case you would be interested in seeing how attentive this movement is both to the practical skills involved in caring for a body for several days as well as the legal responsibilities involved.

I will be away June 3-9 but would be happy to talk with you about this at any other time if you are interested.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Holly Stevens

We'll see what happpens....

A Family Undertaking: One Man's Story

Note: This entry, except for this note, is by Rodger Ericson of Cedar Park, Texas, who contributed 14 wonderful images from the January 2007 family-directed funeral of his mother, Harriet Ericson. You must visit our Flickr site to see them! -- Holly Stevens

Mom was 93 and would have been 94 in three months. She was on hospice during her last months under the term "failure to thrive." She was losing weight, losing interest in things and yet alert to the very end. She yearned to die, as she was the last living relative of her era and wondered why she could not die. She simply died of "old age." We had lots of fun together in life and had a wonderful celebration and time of giving and loving at the end of her life and during the days that followed her death.

She was one of six surviving children Five sibling infants preceded her in death in the early 1900s. The five siblings literally had home funerals. They had died in the home and were in the parlor for viewing, and the funeral service was held there. Mom remembered that, and we often talked about the beauty of those events. Just before she died, she talked a lot about her mother and and one infant brother whom she had held at his death. That story prompted me to tell mom what we had done: I told her about making the hope chest and that I thought that this time death was probably near and that she would soon see her little brother in a new way.

Mom was a one-room school teacher for many years, married a plumber and owner of a hardware store, and had two sons. She was active in her church and in community activities--always giving to others and thinking of their interests before her own. She had her stubborn quirks and ways, but she was gracious and kind far beyond the average person.

My dad died in 1981, and she grieved greatly over that for maybe 15 years before she really accepted it. She loved life but was not afraid of death. She taught me much and I cherish being able to give back to her the kind of infantile care that she first gave to me when I was born. I found it strange to find the roles reversed--of me being the care giver in such a similar way to what she had done for me when I was born. She lived most of her live in Minnesota but we asked her to move close to us two years before she died, because she needed more help than could be expected of distant relatives and close friends. She lived in her own independent living apartment in Round Rock, Texas, up until three weeks before she died.

When I knew mom's death was imminent, I told my brother that I wanted to make a casket for my mom. We called it a hope chest, because that changed the image for myself and my grandchildren. As the grandsons said, ghosts and vampires are in coffins. The name also reflected our Christian faith of a final resurrection of the dead. After we made it, I told my mom and she immediately said, "Can I see it?" "Certainly," I said, and I lifted her out of the bed and put her in a wheelchair so she could see it. Her comment: "That's wonderful."

With my experience as a pastor in a parish, and helped by hospice experiences and learning of some of the family actions in preparing the body for burial, I came to realize that we could do most of the work ourselves, and learned from others of the blessings they received from doing some of this. What we did is what I would call family directed death care. We took charge and followed our own wishes, with the help of our home church and home pastor.

Over the years mom and I had discussed the excessive costs and our objections to the funeral home practices of making people look like they were "sleeping," by using heavy makeup. Mom never used heavy make-up and we never liked that artificial look. Mom looked dead, and yet natural and beautiful, when we placed her in the hope chest. Donna Belk of Crossings Care Circle had helped us to know a technique for closing her eyes and keeping her jaw closed by using towels.

We used a foam pad that had been under mom and dad's bed mattress as a loving base for her body and used a bedspread that they had used until my father died, to wrap my mom for her final resting place. We learned how to dress a body, cutting open the back side of the dress. It was so obvious, but unknown to me before this. Washing and then anointing the body, with a few words on each part of the body, was a powerful and precious ritual. I especially loved Donna's phrase about Mom's hip: that it had been the first saddle for her children.

Traveling to Minnesota in our truck with her body was time consuming, and I wish that we would have had more time, but we wanted to have the service on a Saturday, when family members could more easily attend, and that was my only regret--we felt rushed. It was humorous when we stopped for the night at a hotel, and I asked to have the truck parked by the front door, so nothing would happen to the treasure in the back of the truck. I told them that mom was in the hope chest. My daughter said, "Dad, you don't have to tell them everything." It didn't feel strange to transport her body in our truck. In fact, it helped us to accept the reality and to know we were enabling what she had wanted to happen, to be buried in the home cemetery next to my father.

I did not know of anyone who did everything as we did with a body burial. We wanted to give our final gift to mom--in service and love and thoughtfulness rather than throwing money at the event. I would not recommend people to take on a family funeral for the purpose of saving money, but as a result of what we did, the costs were low--under $200 plus cemetery costs and gifts to the church. The benefits, on the other hand, were high. We experienced healing. I felt it was good therapy. My children and grandchildren learned some facts and to not be afraid of death. My grandchildren now talk rather openly about how someday I will die. It is not a morbid conversation; neither are they scared by the thought. We sometimes are amazed at how beneficial the family funeral of mom was for them.

The most common comment we got from others was, "You can do that?" And the second most common comment was, "That was really nice. It was so personal."

I would strongly urge family members to prepare long in advance for a family funeral. Last minute decision making seldom results in a family undertaking.

Photographer Plans Large Format Book on Home Funerals

I've been approached by a well established west coast photographer named Jan Sturmann (first name pronounced "Yon") who is very interested in creating a large format photography book that will visually tell the stories, over time, of about a dozen families as they encounter the final illness of a loved one, on through the actual death, and beyond, to a home funeral. He's envisioning a book that will include families throughout the U.S., and will be multicultural. The emphasis will be on candid photography but text will also be included, perhaps about a thousand words per story, perhaps in the family's own words.

His work will involve a series of interviews and photography sessions over time. He'd like to get started by working with one specific family soon, with the hope of getting a major publisher interested in the project once they see the quality of the photos. One of the challenges will be finding families who are willing to be photographed and interviewed during such intimate times, and learning about them in time to capture the story before the death comes.

I think such a project has value from a couple of standpoints. First, we are as a culture so removed from caring for our own dead that it's hard for most people to even understand the concept "home funeral" and to visualize what it entails. Second, photography can convey in a way that text cannot how beautiful and indeed sacred a home funeral can be -- allaying gut reactions that caring for the dead is somehow scary.

Perhaps one of our readers will find himself or herself involved with a family that is facing a loved one's final illness and will be in a position to mention this project and ask gently for possible participation. Please keep Jan in mind. Please email me if you come across something promising. Thank you.

A Funeral in Pioneer Days

A Funeral in Pioneer Days, originally uploaded by Undertaken With Love.

Thanks to the Institute for Regional Studies at North Dakota State University for granting permission for images of pioneer funerals to be added to our home funeral collection: www.ndsu.edu/archives

This image, titled "A Funeral in Pioneer Days," carries a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Generic license. Attribution: "Photo courtesy Fred Hultstrand History in Pictures Collection, Institute for Regional Studies, NDSU, Fargo, N.D."

I hope you'll visit our Flickr site to see our growing collection of photos of home funerals available for the free use of others for noncommercial purposes only.

Images from a Home Funeral

Flickr Site Adds Home Funeral Images

Thanks to Donna Belk and Sandy Booth of Austin, Texas, our new Flickr site now has some images related to home funerals that are available for others' free use (for noncommercial purposes, with appropriate attribution). We hope that the Flickr site will help bloggers, journalists, editors and producers working on stories about home funerals. All photos will have the permission of any families depicted prior to posting, and each photo will carry a generous Creative Commons license.

If you have photos you would like to contribute to the project, please email me for details.

Best Practices in Home Funeral Education and Consulting

Oregon's current legislation regarding licensing anyone who, for a fee, leads workshops related to final arrangements is both a risk and an opportunity for home funeral advocates.

Obviously it is a risk in several ways:

• It infringes on free speech by requiring licensing for communications regarding funerals.
• It potentially obstructs the ability of families to acquire the knowledge, skills and support to direct their own funerals without a licensed provider.
  
• The language of the Oregon bill gives the funeral board the authority to establish the standards that death care consultants would have to meet. Because there is no provision for home funeral consultants to be on the board and because the board is predominantly peopled with funeral industry insiders, this is akin to having the fox guard the hen house.

But there are several opportunities as well:

• Home funeral educators and practitioners across the country are looking at events in Oregon and Colorado and realizing that they need to form supportive networks to be better prepared for hostile legislation that may be coming to other states.
• Home funeral advocates are beginning to appreciate the value of having a watchdog group backing them. Funeral Consumers Alliance too often is castigated for being too in-your-face and strident, but home funeral advocates in Oregon and Colorado are now seeing how important it is to work with a group that is skilled in legal and legislative advocacy on behalf of funeral consumers.
• This is a wake up call that home funeral advocates should begin a candid discussion about how to promote ethical practices in home funeral advocacy. We cannot wait for states to begin passing legislation to protect funeral consumers from unethical home funeral practitioners, who may eventually enter the picture if home funerals become more popular and home funeral consulting begins to become a more lucrative occupation. I'd like to see funeral consumer and home funeral advocates collaborate on a "best practices" model for home funeral education and consultative services.

With that last point in mind, I would love to hear from readers about what some of those "best practices" might look like. Perhaps we'd need to establish separate "best practices" for legislation and for home funeral practitioners, though there would be overlap. "Best practices" could relate not only to preparation for the field, but also the pricing of services and, perhaps, the regulation of home funerals.

It concerns me greatly that almost all states have funeral boards that are peopled with a majority of industry insiders. When boards that regulate funeral goods and services are dominated by industry insiders, the tendency is for them to focus on stifling competition and protecting turf, rather than their legislatively established purposes to protect consumers and the public health. Boards like Oregon's that are populated with a majority mix of funeral home, crematory and cemetery operators are going to tend to protect that mix from outside encroachments, including home funeral advocates. Boards like North Carolina's that are populated with a majority of funeral home operators specifically are additionally going to tend to protect funeral homes from outside encroachments including independent crematories. (Yes, I'm seeing that happen here.)

I don't think we're going to succeed anytime soon in making public members (those without any direct stake in commercial funeral goods and services) the majority on these state regulatory boards. But--I throw this out for consideration--what if home funeral practitioners modeled more appropriate oversight by developing their own council (albeit without the power to license or remove licenses that state boards have through their legislative authority), with a majority of public members? How about an 11 member Home Funeral Council in the U.S. that would be composed, say, of:

6 public members (the majority) having no direct stake in any commercial death care sector
2 home funeral educators or consultants (whether they earn a living from their work or not)
1 representative from the funeral home sector
1 representative from the independent crematory sector
1 representative from the commercial cemetery sector

What if, in turn, this voluntary national home funeral council developed:

• Criteria for accrediting (not licensing) professional home funeral practitioners and/or educators? The distinction is that licensure suggests a bar that must be met before one can engage in the practice at all; accreditation suggests a bar that must be met after some experience in the practice that shows certain levels of competency and/or knowledge and/or conformity with established ethical standards.
• Policies that would support the free speech rights of families and funeral consumer advocates when it comes to such things as workshops on consumer options in death care or literature on home funerals?
• Ethical standards for home funeral practice that discourages usury or other deceptive practices that could hurt families (AKA funeral consumers)? I don't think we have an issue presently with disreputable home funeral educators; on the contrary, I think they are as a group a very pro-family bunch. But the potential exists for charletans to enter this field if it is shown to be lucrative. How do we guard against abuse?

What do you think?

Talk of the Nation: Home Funerals

National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation" aired a segment on home funerals today, featuring Max Alexander, a freelance journalist who shared the very different funerals of his father and father-in-law, days apart, in an article for Smithsonian Magazine; Lisa Carlson, executive director of Funeral Ethics Organization; and Glenn Taylor, owner of a funeral home in Owensboro, Ky.

Correspondence with the Sponsor of Oregon SB 796

Here is email correspondence between me and Senator Vicki Walker of Oregon, sponsor of SB 796:

_______________________________________

From: Holly Stevens [mailto:holly_stevens@mac.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 4:16 PM
To: Sen Walker
Subject: Please strike down SB796

Dear Senator Walker,

I am writing with grave concerns about SB 796, which contains the following language:

“An individual may not practice as a death care consultant unless the individual is licensed as a death care consultant under section 4 of this 2009 Act. Regardless of any title used by the individual, an individual practices as a death care consultant if the individual offers, for payment, consultations or workshops to individuals or groups regarding funeral or final disposition services.”

I am the project coordinator for Undertaken With Love, a national not-for-profit initiative aimed at supporting families that want to participate more fully in the care of their loved ones' remains until burial or cremation. In all but a handful of states, including Oregon, it is legal for a family to care for its own dead until burial or cremation without the involvement of a licensed funeral provider. While it is entirely possible for a motivated family to acquire the knowledge and skills needed for such a "home funeral," the process is eased considerably when a group assists. That's why we developed our manual, "Undertaken With Love: A Home Funeral Guide for Congregations and Committees," to make it possible for a group to learn together what their legal rights and responsibilities are in their particular state, how to care for a body for up to three days in a home environment, and how to form a home funeral committee in the community to support families that want to care for their own dead.
It is our hope and intention for our manual to be used by both religious and secular groups -- especially congregational committees and hospice support groups -- that want to learn how to begin supporting family-directed funerals in their midst.

As this statute is worded, a pastoral care minister that received an honorarium for assisting a family with its home funeral tasks would be vulnerable to charges of practicing as a death care consultant without a license. So could a hospice that offered a workshop for families on how to host a home vigil before arranging for burial or cremation. I can't think of any way that such charges would serve to protect the public.

With surging interest being shown by Americans in environmentally sound funeral practices, more families are inquiring about home funerals and their rights and responsibilities in caring for their own dead. Believe me, the funeral trade is not going to be a generous source of information and support. State legislators, aware that state funeral regulatory boards are populated with funeral trade insiders, should ever vigilant to support family rights and options in death care, not collude with funeral trade groups to curtail them!

I hope you will move decisively to dismantle this hostile piece of legislation.

Holly Stevens, Project Leader
Undertaken WIth Love: A Home Funeral Guide for Congregations and Communities
hstevens@homefuneralmanual.org
www.homefuneralmanual.org
5918 Pepper Road
Oak Ridge, N.C. 27310-9631
(336) 643-5947

_______________________________________

On Apr 23, 2009, at 8:02 PM, Sen Walker wrote:

Dear Ms. Stevens,

Thank you for writing regarding SB 796. I have received emails and phone calls from folks in your industry who have referred to this bill as everything from “inept” to “far-reaching.” In addition, many have accused me of sponsoring this bill at the direction of the Oregon Mortuary and Cemetery Board, and feel it is an attempt to “shut down your industry.” All of these statements are false and unfounded. I encourage you to read the entire bill, as amended, to understand that we are not singling out your industry.

This bill was drafted at my request because I strongly believe that consumers need to have protections as they do in many other areas of the law. The funeral business in Oregon is not overregulated – far from it. As a court reporter, I have been involved in at least two cases over the years in the court system where consumers have been duped and betrayed by certain practitioners. There is a reason for state regulation for anyone involved in the business of providing funeral services or advising consumers about death care.

I make no attempt to stifle anyone's voice in the legislative process. In fact, I encouraged several of you to either attend the public hearing, or submit written testimony to the committee members in the Senate Health Care & Veteran’s Affairs Committee. The public hearing has already passed, and the bill will move out of committee and onto the Senate floor. If you have objections to the bill, I suggest you attend the public hearing once it reaches the House. I have every intention on proceeding with this legislation, and will do everything I can to ensure passage this session.

Sen. Vicki L. Walker

_______________________________________

Dear Sen. Walker:

Thank you for your prompt and direct response to my earlier email. I appreciate your taking the time to write.

I did take the time last night to read the full text as amended. (For some reason, I was not able to find the full text online when I wrote my earlier note, so was writing with awareness of only the one paragraph about the licensing requirement for death care consultants.)

I did not use the terms "inept" or "far reaching" in my note, nor did I make any guesses about your motivations in sponsoring the bill. Neither would I call my work an "industry" since I do not myself derive a penny from what for me is a passion and a calling, to empower families to care for their own dead. I am a home funeral advocate, and some of my fellow advocates, it is true, do earn some income from their work as consultants, while others do not. My experience with home funeral advocates and educators is that the profit motive is either absent or secondary to the humanitarian motive in their work.

But let me say this: I recognize that while I know of no death "midwives" or educators who are in this work primarily for the money, that if this work ever became lucrative, it would attract those who follow money, and therefore, we need to address how best to ensure that this occupation doesn't morph into something that hurts rather than assists families who want to care for their own dead. Let me say, too, that I am completely in your court in your belief that "consumers need to have protections as they do in many other areas of the law." In addition to my unpaid work as a home funeral advocate, I am also active in my local Funeral Consumers Alliance chapter, and as you might surmise, I'm most appreciative in that venue of the protections afforded consumers by the Funeral Rule of the Federal Trade Commission.

The problem is this: State regulatory boards -- Oregon's among them -- are populated primarily by the very people they are established to regulate. Oregon does have four public (non-trade) members on its board, but they are a weak minority. These boards do have helpful and important powers to license and withhold licenses from those who provide funeral goods and services, and by and large, they do a good job of preventing the most blatant acts of wrongdoing. However, I have seen many, many times how these boards move to protect their turf and decrease consumer choice under the guise of protecting the public. I'm appreciative of the fact that, unlike many such state regulatory boards, Oregon's has more than just funeral home owners; it also includes cemetery owners and crematory operators. But there is _NO_ representation assured on the Oregon board for home funeral educators and consultants, yet this bill you are sponsoring gives the board the power to create and administer exams that a "death care consultant" would have to pass in order to receive a license. What protections are there that such an exam would have content designed to protect the public and NOT simply to raise so high a bar that the board would be merely using its power to limit competition?

I am writing from outside Oregon, so perhaps that is why I did not receive any notice of public hearings or invitations to submit written testimony. I wrote my note to you on the same day that I first became aware of the issue. Admittedly, FCA chapters and home educators who _should_ be watching their state legislators are often asleep at the wheel when something like this comes up. Because we are _NOT_ as well organized as funeral industry trade groups, we sometimes drop the ball. It is unfortunate that more time was not built into the process to bring more parties into the discussion before the legislation was so far along in the process.

Thanks for your response. I believe I join you in your basic intentions, as you have stated them -- just differ with you on the effects of this piece of legislation.

Holly Stevens, Project Leader
Undertaken WIth Love: A Home Funeral Guide for Congregations and Communities
hstevens@homefuneralmanual.org
www.homefuneralmanual.org
5918 Pepper Road
Oak Ridge, N.C. 27310-9631
(336) 643-5947

Needed: Home Funeral Images Free for Noncommercial Use

Steve Burns, a graduate student and film production instructor at Indiana University whose students filmed the "When Death Knocks" symposium in Greensboro in March, just emailed me to ask if I knew of any good sources of still images (photographs or drawings) of family-directed home funerals.

This is a real need. If you have images of home funerals and have the authority to grant permission for others to use your photos for noncommercial purposes, please let me know. It would be wonderful if you would consider placing a Creative Commons Noncommercial-Attribution-ShareAlike or similarly generous copyright on your images so that others can use them for humanitarian, noncommercial uses. This would increase blogging about home funerals as well as enhance the readability of websites and publications that include content about home funerals. In fact, I would like to see the Undertaken With Love website start a photo gallery of such images that others could use.

If you have such images to share, please indicate whether you wish to use the Creative Commons license recommended here or another similar one and the following details:

• Name of the copyright owner, to which the image should be attributed
• If that is not you, how we can contact the copyright owner for proper permissions
• Any descriptions of the photo that you would like to make public, such as date, place, and what or who is depicted
• Your relationship to the deceased's next of kin. If you are not an immediate family member, please give us contact information for the next of kin so that we can obtain their permission also.

What kinds of images are needed? Some examples:

• Handmade or decorated caskets, open or closed
  
• Tasteful pictures of the deceased in a home funeral environment
• Pictures of children assisting in some manner with the home funeral
• Pictures of ceremonies in a home environment
• Artwork created for use in a home funeral
• Handmade invitations to a home funeral
• Image showing the casket being transported in some manner by loved ones
• Discrete images of the process of bathing and dressing the body -- perhaps a close up of a hand being washed, or a necklace being lovingly attached
• Images of a finished gravesite
• Images of a table of mementoes or other items collected for a funeral
• Images of a meal being shared connected to a home funeral

Thanks for your consideration.

Oregon Law Puts Home Funeral Educators, Families at Risk

Alert! April 21, 2009--Josh Slocum, executive director of Funeral Consumers Alliance, informs us that the Oregon Senate is considering a bill, SB 796, that would require anyone who receives payment for educating groups or individuals about funeral options to be licensed as a death care consultant. Here is the wording:

“An individual may not practice as a death care consultant unless the individual is licensed as a death care consultant under section 4 of this 2009 Act. Regardless of any title used by the individual, an individual practices as a death care consultant if the individual offers, for payment, consultations or workshops to individuals or groups regarding funeral or final disposition services.”

Slocum has written the bill's sponsor, Sen. Vicki Walker, about his concerns. His letter describes the bill's measures as an infringement on First Amendment rights of funeral consumer and home funeral advocates and educators and as a strategic move by funeral industry insiders to curtail the growing home funeral movement. Slocum's letter recognizes the need for a public discussion to begin around the subject of how funeral regulations might need to be updated to consider new developments including surging interest in family-directed funerals, but he rightly calls for such discussions to be transparent, public and involve all players.

Take action now! Email Sen. Vicki Walker, write to her at 900 Court St. NE, S-309
Salem, OR 9730, or call her at (503) 986-1707.

You can read more about the issue at the FCA website. We're also inviting comment from Funeral Consumers Alliance of Oregon and home funeral educators and practitioners in that state. Let us know what you know about this bill, what your concerns are, how we can help. Email us so we can support you.

Presentations in Utah

I'll be speaking on at Toastmasters in Provo Utah Monday April 20th 2009 and then at a Conference on Natural Living on April 25th in West Jordan Utah. My tentative title is "What kind of Funeral Consumer Are You?"
Joyce Mitchell

North Carolina Home Funeral Group Seeks Others

La Grange, N.C.--Cindy Freeman reports from her hometown -- situated between Goldsboro and Kinston, east of Raleigh -- that she is interested in gauging interest in using "Undertaken With Love" to explore home funerals. La Grange has been served by a single family-based funeral home for more than 100 years. A family graveyard was created on the family homestead there in the late 1800s but has since become overgrown with trees. For her, a home funeral would simply be an extension of her involvement over the years with home birthing, home schooling and home worship.

"The funny thing is, I am not doing things that have never been done before, just going back to the way things used to be done that many are not doing now," she observes in sensing that she is regarded by some as a maverick. Yet her friends are showing an interest in home funerals. She doesn't want to make her email address public on this blog, but you can email me if you want to be in touch with Cindy, and I'll pass your email address on to her.

Thanks, Cindy, for writing. I hope it will lead others to send us posts to seek others interested in forming a small group to use "Undertaken With Love."

Orem Utah's 1st home funeral committee mtg

The first Home Funeral Committee meeting of 4 women was held in Orem Utah on Sat March 21st. It was decided we would all spend time reading the manual on our own, find individuals that work at the various local hospitals to help us find the right contact person to approach about learning each hospital's protocol for release of the dead to family.

It was also decided that we needed a reference booklet with all of Utah funeral laws compiled in it so that we could refer to it when we are faced with immediate questioning. That booklet is now complete. I plan to post it online within the next month or two (after everyone gets a chance to suggest edits).

Joyce

Update on Colorado Funeral Bill

We just heard from Natural Transitions of Colorado that the Appropriations Committee of the Colorado House of Representatives has voted to send HB 1202 on funeral regulation back to the first committee - the House Business Affairs and Labor Committee.

"This is a great sign," the email alert says. "The first committee had voted unanimously in favor of this bill. At that point, the only input they had received was from the big corporate funeral lobby who is backing this measure. Now we have a chance to really influence the outcome of this bill in a significant way."

The original bill text effectively would make family-directed home funerals illegal. Home funeral advocates are being asked to email Appropriations Committee members to voice their concerns. The Natural Transitions site offers details on how to respond. Here are the email addresses:

House Business Affairs and Labor Committee

11 members

Representative Rice, Chair
Representative Casso, Vice-Chair
Representative Liston, Ranking Republican
Representatives Balmer, Bradford, Gagliardi, Priola, Ryden, Scanlan, Soper, Stephens


Joe Rice, District 38 (Democrat)
Phone: 303-866-2953 (Capitol)
Email: joe.rice.house@state.co.us

Edward Casso, District 32 (Democrat)
Phone: 303-866-2964
Email:edward.casso.house@state.co.us

Larry Liston, District 16 (Republican)
Phone: 303-866-2965
Email: larry.liston.house@state.co.us

David Balmer, District 39 (Republican)
Phone: 303-866-2935
Email: david.balmer.house@state.co.us

Laura Bradford, District 55 (Republican)
Phone: 303-866-2583
Email: laurabradford55@gmail.com

Sara Gagliardi, District 27 (Democrat)
Phone: 303-866-2962
Email: sara.gagliardi.house@state.co.us

Kevin Priola, District 30 (Republican)
Phone: 303-866-2912
Email: kpriola@gmail.com

Su Ryden, District 36, (Democrat) - HB1202 CO-SPONSOR
Phone: 303-866-2942
Email: su.ryden.house@state.co.us

Christine Scanlan, District 56 (Democrat)
Phone: 303-866-2952
Email: christine.scanlan.house@state.co.us

John Soper, District 34 (Democrat)
Phone: 303-866-2931
Email: john.soper.house@state.co.us

Amy Stephens, District 20 (Republican)
Phone: 303-866-2924
Email: amy.stephens.house@state.co.us


Individual emails are best, but here is also a list to copy and paste
amy.stephens.house@state.co.us; john.soper.house@state.co.us; christine.scanlan.house@state.co.us; su.ryden.house@state.co.us;
kpriola@gmail.com; sara.gagliardi.house@state.co.us; laurabradford55@gmail.com;david.balmer.house@state.co.us; larry.liston.house@state.co.us; Edward.casso.house@state.co.us; joe.rice.house@state.co.us;

Home Funerals Topic of Mortuary Science Class

Rev. Lynn Acquafondata of Final Journey Home and Pete McQuillin of Green Burial Pittsburgh taught a class this past Monday on home funerals and the green burial movement at the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science. On hand to cover this event was KDKA's Mary Robb Jackson. This story will air on KDKA on Tuesday, April 7th at 5:00 PM. Check it out.

"When Death Knocks" Symposium Brings Together Religious Leaders and Home Funeral Advocates/Educators

Our symposium here in Greensboro, N.C., many months in the making, is over -- and what a weekend it was! I tallied the evaluation sheets this afternoon and from all accounts, the event was deeply appreciated by the 110 people who registered as well as others who attended the Friday night talk by Mark Harris.

"When Death Knocks: A Community Symposium" offered each participant a choice of three workshops among 11 options ranging from the conventional to the alternative. Several were directly related to home funerals, including C. L. Hickerson's workshop on the home funeral and burial of his mother Nellie Hickerson on the family's 80-acre homestead in Randolph County, a workshop by Ahmad-Rufai Abdullah and David Zaborsky on Muslim and Jewish funeral customs and interfaith collaboration around community care of the dead, and Sandy LaGrega's workshop on natural burial and care of the body at home. I offered copies of "Undertaken With Love" to those who showed an interest in home funerals, and of course Mark Harris' Friday night talk on natural alternatives to the modern funeral portrayed home funerals and natural burials as the most environmentally considerate options in final arrangements. Carol Cothern's workshop on funeral myths and consumer rights educated participants about their rights and responsibilities in home death care as well.

While the symposium was intended primarily for Piedmont Triad residents, we had people register from afar. Funeral Consumers Alliance members from Wilmington, Asheville and the Triangle came, and home funeral educators came from Asheville and Pennsylvania. The award for the furthest distance goes to Joyce Mitchell of our own "Undertaken With Love" project, who flew in just for the symposium all the way from Provo, Utah! We also had a film crew from Indiana University that is working on a documentary on American funeral practices for its PBS affliate.

The symposium was co-sponsored by Funeral Consumers Alliance of the Piedmont, FaithAction International House, and the Sophia Center for Life Studies of Greensboro. Many, many people contributed time, money and endorsements to make it possible, but I think one of the biggest factors behind its success was the support and involvement of Greensboro's interfaith religious communities. My personal passion has been working to involve faith communities in working toward funeral reform and in reclaiming their voice in shaping the etiquette of funeral practices in America -- and this event shows how many more people can be reached with our message of options and possibilities when religious leaders and institutions join our work.

We are especially grateful to First Lutheran Church for hosting our event. Its sanctuary was a lovely contemporary backdrop for Mark Harris' presentation; its fellowship hall offered comfortable seating for our catered lunch; and the classroom facilities were amazingly well equipped.

One of my personal hopes is that one outcome of the symposium will be the start of a few congregational committees to explore the concept of home funerals via our guide Undertaken With Love.

New Blog Host

This blog, new to Blogger/Blogspot, is connected to the Undertaken With Love web site and will include announcements of new content on that site as well as other timely information as circumstances arise.

The regular site does offer a blog option -- and the earlier posts here came from that -- but it was more limited in terms of design, layout and the ability of readers to easily subscribe and unsubscribe and stay informed.

I hope this site will become more participatory with time. It's always gratifying to hear from our readers!

Finding a Flexible Funeral Director

Finding a Flexible Funeral Director
Holly Stevens Posted by Holly Stevens at 08:16 PM on February 22, 2009 Delete delete Overlays edit Comments comments (0)

I'm starting to have conversations with other home funeral advocates in my town about how we might go about identifying funeral homes and FDs who would be flexible about working very minimally with a family that wants to direct its own funeral but wants just a bit of assistance with an item or two.

I'm wondering if others on this list have deliberately sought out such FDs and, if so, I'd love to hear from them about how they went about it.

It seems that one of the key steps to take is to clarify what it is we want to know and which questions would get at the information we'd need. It's challenging, because the needs and preferences of families directing their own funerals are so diverse.

One area of inquiry might be the basic services fee. In almost all of our funeral homes here, it is obviously discounted for immediate burials, direct cremations and receiving and forwarding of remains, although only one of our funeral homes actually states on its GPL that the basic services fee is discounted for these services. I wonder if the FTC has commented on this practice of discounting -- and whether it might be used to the advantage of family-directed funerals where such common basic services as securing the death certificate and sheltering the body aren't even necessarily provided by the funeral home?

If others have approached funeral homes in their areas on behalf of family-directed funeral fans, I hope you'll share here about your experience, how you went about it, what you learned, and what came of it. Did you do it in person? Did you issue any sort of survey? What reactions did you get? Did you do any follow up? Was it a valuable process?

A Post for Non-Coloradans

The other day I posted an alert from Karen Van Vuuren of Natural Transitions about a hostile body of legislation that would effectively ban home funerals in Colorado. I hoped it would spur Colorado readers to take action.

This post is to ask the rest of our readers to respond. Van Vuuren assures me that our letters and appeals are vitally important. The legislation is being hailed by its supporters as being a significant step toward regulating the funeral industry for the public good, but the Devil is in its details, vague language, and far sweeping powers that seem aimed more at protecting the funeral industry's turf.

You can be sure other state regulatory bodies -- almost all predominantly populated with industry insiders -- will be watching to see what happens. We need to show that funeral consumer advocates in general and home funeral advocates in particular know how to rally in response!

First, take just a few minutes to see the actual bill. See how sloppy and vague it is. See how it places at risk those who assist families WITHOUT COMPENSATION in caring for their dead. See how difficult it makes it for newcomers to enter the funeral trade. See how it requires funeral directors to gain experience in cremation and embalming even if they would rather not participate in those practices.

You don't have to read it all to get the gist.

Second, look at Josh Slocum's excellent critique:

Third, take one or more actions.

* If you are in a chapter of Crossings or another sympathetic group, generate a petition to voice your opposition, then email Karen Van Vuuren to let her know: info@naturaltransitions.org

* If you have friends or relatives in Colorado who might spend just a minute on the matter, have them contact their legislator to oppose Colorado House Bill 09-1202, "Concerning the Regulation of Persons Who Provide for the Final Disposition of Dead Human Bodies in the Normal Course of Business." If they do not know who their representative is, have them go here: http://www.votesmart.org/

* Email the Colorado House Appropriations Committee, which will be the first to examine the bill, then email Karen Van Vuuren at info@naturaltransitions.org to let her know:

Representative Jack Pommer

Representative Mark Ferrandino

Representative Don Marostica

Representatives Bob Gardner
.
Representative Joel Judd

Representative John Kefalas

Representative Andy Kerr

Representative James Kerr

Representative Elizabeth McCann

Representative Sal Pace

Representative Jim Riesberg

Representative Jerry Sonnenberg

Representative Glenn Vaad


*Write to or email the bill's sponsor to ask her to seek input from consumer groups and funeral consumers, then email Karen Van Vuuren t info@naturaltransitions.org to let her know you did
The sponsor is:
Representative Nancy Todd
District 41
200 E. Colfax
Denver CO 80203.
nancy.todd.house@state.co.us
303-866-2919

Finding a Flexible Funeral Director, Part 2

Rev. Lynn Acquafondata of Pittsburgh, Penn., has worked with funeral homes in her area to identify those that will offer flexible services to families that want to provide most of the care of their own dead.

Acquafondata is an end-of-life guide who guides families through the process of directing their own funerals, assisting at whatever level they desire, but take care not to provide services that only a licensed funeral director can perform, since she is paid for these services. That meant thoroughly grasping what her boundaries would be as she sat up her business. Fortunately, she found a funeral home that helped her achieve clarity about these boundaries (which aren't an issue for a family caring for its own dead).

"I think advance contacts are best so that the funeral homes are familiar with what I am doing and I know ahead of time I have their support," she says. "The local Funeral Consumers' Alliance gave me names of funeral homes who were most likely to be receptive. One funeral home owner was helpful in several ways in getting my business started such as helping to identify the laws I need to be aware of and the boundaries I need to make clear in order not to be sued by competitive and sometimes contentious local funeral homes. He came up with a price list for services which my clients may need/want that I cannot offer such as transportation of the body and securing permits and death certificates.

"A second funeral home does not see me as a competitor, but as offering a complementary service. They said they would put my flyers out. They are going to come up with a similar price list for me. I'm meeting with a crematory owner sometime this week. I know these
people are likely the exceptions, but it's good to know ahead of time I have some funeral directors I can work with as needed," says Acquafondata.

A Unitarian Universalist ordained minister, Acquafondata calls her new venture "Final Journey Home."

Colorado Bill Threatens Home Funerals in That State

We just received this alert from Natural Transitions in Colorado:

House Bill 1202 takes Colorado from no licensing of funeral directors to the introduction of a bill that would bring some of the most stringent, restrictive funeral legislation in the US. Provisions force families to use mortuaries where they would rather not.

For more information, see our Colorado funeral laws page.

New Page on the Funeral Rule

Most laws affecting home funerals are promulgated at the state level. But you can benefit from grasping the chief measures of the Funeral Rule, a body of funeral consumer protection regulations introduced in 1984 by the Federal Trade Commission. Now we have a page that describes its relevance to home funerals. Click on "The Funeral Rule" in the left side menu.

New Page on State Laws

We've just added a new page on resources for researching laws and regulations in each state that pertain to home funerals. It is a work in progress; in particular, we need to add departments of vital records that regulate the filing of death certificates. We also welcome additional resources from our readers, particularly papers for each state that summarize the state laws affecting home funerals for each location.

Finding a Flexible Funeral Director

I'm starting to have conversations with other home funeral advocates in my town about how we might go about identifying funeral homes and FDs who would be flexible about working very minimally with a family that wants to direct its own funeral but wants just a bit of assistance with an item or two.

I'm wondering if others on this list have deliberately sought out such FDs and, if so, I'd love to hear from them about how they went about it.

It seems that one of the key steps to take is to clarify what it is we want to know and which questions would get at the information we'd need. It's challenging, because the needs and preferences of families directing their own funerals are so diverse.

One area of inquiry might be the basic services fee. In almost all of our funeral homes here, it is obviously discounted for immediate burials, direct cremations and receiving and forwarding of remains, although only one of our funeral homes actually states on its GPL that the basic services fee is discounted for these services. I wonder if the FTC has commented on this practice of discounting -- and whether it might be used to the advantage of family-directed funerals where such common basic services as securing the death certificate and sheltering the body aren't even necessarily provided by the funeral home?

If others have approached funeral homes in their areas on behalf of family-directed funeral fans, I hope you'll share here about your experience, how you went about it, what you learned, and what came of it. Did you do it in person? Did you issue any sort of survey? What reactions did you get? Did you do any follow up? Was it a valuable process?

State Listings Updated

We've now update our state-by-state listings of home funeral law resources to include the departments of health in all 50 states.

Also, we have posted to the Michigan listing a Q&A on that state's funeral consumer laws by Erika Nelson, a home funeral advocate who also happens to be a funeral director licensee in her state. If you're from Michigan, check it out! We'd love to receive links to similar resources for other states.