Jacqueline Dalzell becomes Certified Funeral Celebrant

Jacqueline Dalzell, grief counselor and public relations specialist for David C. Brown Funeral Home in Belleville, recently attended a three-day workshop to become a Certified Funeral Celebrant. The training was held at the Ohio Funeral Directors Association (OFDA) in Columbus, Ohio.
The Funeral Celebrant training is a new approach to personalized funerals presented by Doug Manning and Glenda Stansbury of the InSight Institute. By the end of 2019 they had trained more than 4,100 funeral celebrants throughout the United States and Canada.
A Funeral Celebrant is a lay person, a member of the clergy, or a funeral director who has been trained in the specific area of conducting funerals for families who wish to have a personalized and individualized funeral service experience.
Society has become much more mobile and much less tied to the church, Dalzell said. Many people are not affiliated with a religion or theology, and do not have clergy on whom to call in times of death, she said.
Also, many people are not comfortable with a traditional religious funeral ceremony. Therefore, the need for Funeral Celebrants has become more apparent, she said.
This practice is used widely in New Zealand and Australia. In some cases, Civil Celebrants, who are licensed by the government in those countries, perform over 50% of the funerals and weddings. Doug Manning, one of the leading speakers and authors in the bereavement field, toured these countries several years ago, and brought back the idea that people in the United States and Canada needed this option.
The three-day training included people from all over the country who will either offer these services to families who come to their funeral homes or individuals who will contract with firms to offer these services to the community.
Celebrants offer personalized funeral services, life tributes, memorial services, and graveside memorials. They meet with the family to help them design a service that reflects the life and attributes of their loved one. Dalzell will offer this option to families who choose David C. Brown Funeral Home.