Event Calendar

Start Date: 9/28/2022 1:00 PM EDT
End Date: 9/28/2022 6:00 PM EDT

Venue Name: Sheraton Needham Hotel

Location:

Organization Name: Massachusetts Funeral Directors Association

Contact:

Keynote Presentation

Cremation is ______: Understanding Cremation Motivations and Statistics
Barbara Kemmis, Executive Director, Cremation Association of North America - 3 CEUs
Barbara Kemmis is the nation’s leading expert on everything cremation. Join with us to learn at this special session designed to help you better recognize the motivations of consumers who select cremation as their form of final disposition.
Learn skills to better meet the needs of today’s families who select cremation. We’ll identify how current market trends will impact your business and identify strategies to remain profitable in today’s market. CANA statistics have tracked the growth in cremation and reported the reasons why cremation is the new tradition, but what happens before and after the decision to cremate? This session presents ground-breaking research on consumer behavior and attitudes toward cremation. What we’ll learn:

• Learn insights from focus groups participants describing their cremation experiences
• Identify strategies to meet the needs of cremation families
• Rethink professional and personal assumptions about cremation.
• Learn from national and state statistical trends
• Identify how current market trends will impact your business

 
Tissue Recovery: An Update to Better Serve Donor Families
Lisa A. Paolillo, Chief Legal Officer and Anthony Cannata, Donation Development Manager, New England Donor Services
1 CEU
The availability of tissue for transplantation provides a source of life for ill and injured Americans. Hundreds of thousands benefit from healing and function-restoring transplants of donated tissue. New England Donor Services recognizes you are the professional who helps the families of donors through their most painful period of grieving, and your involvement is essential to make the donation experience a positive one for family members and friends. This session is designed to assist you with serving donor families and answer your questions about tissue procurement by New England Donor Services. We’ll discuss an overview of the tissue recovery process from start to finish. Important points we’ll review are referral, screening, recovery, processing, and distribution.
 
Race and Ethnicity on the Death Certificate. Why it Matters and Your Essential Role
Karin Barrett, M.Ed., Registrar, Registry of Vital Records and Statistics — 1 CEU
The accurate and timely completion of death records is a challenging and frequently frustrating yet extraordinarily important responsibility of the funeral establishment. This presentation by Massachusetts Registrar Karin Barrett reviews the essential role that funeral directors have as a partner of the Registry of Vital Records. We’ll discuss the importance of the data collected, specifically race and ethnicity, in order to improve accuracy and completeness of reporting. We’ll also review how it is used at local and state levels and how your work to collect this information supports these efforts. Additionally, we’ll include best practices for asking informants about race and ethnicity and identify tools that can be used in the arrangement conference when doing so.
 
MFDA Annual Business Meeting
MFDA Leadership
Join us for our annual business meeting. We’ll discuss the work of our Strategic Issues Task Force, learn about the new EDRS system as well as some upcoming initiatives including a project being developed by MFDA in collaboration with the Northeast Funeral Service Partnership to address workforce issues. Hear from our Nominating Committee about our new team of Officers and Board members.

CLICK HERE to download a registration form.