Practice Guidance

The Core Values set out what we believe, and the Code of Conduct sets out our commitments. This page is the practical part. It shows what those commitments actually mean on a Tuesday afternoon.

None of it is complicated. But it is better read now than met for the first time on the agreement form.

Family information

This one is law, not house rules. Privacy legislation applies to anyone handling personal information in the course of commercial activity. In Canada that means PIPEDA federally, with separate provincial legislation in Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec. In the United States it is a patchwork of state law. Your obligations exist whether or not the Association says anything about them.

Find out which rules apply where you work. Part one of your pre-course work asks you to do this. Look at it again once you are actually taking families.

You will hold things families have told almost no one. Medical history, family conflict, an estrangement, the circumstances of a death. Some of it will be in your notes, some in a script, some only in your memory.

What good practice looks like:

• Collect only what you need to write and lead the service
• Use it only for that purpose. Never use it for marketing, never as an anecdote, and never as an example in any of your groups
• Keep it somewhere other people cannot casually see it. A locked file, a password on the laptop, notes not left in a car
• Do not post about a family online, however anonymized you believe it to be. Towns are small
• If a family asks what you hold, tell them. If they ask you to destroy it, destroy it

Keeping records

This one is not law. No statute tells a celebrant to keep a script for seven years. It is professional practice, and it is what the Association asks of you. But you should know the difference between the two.

Here is what we ask, and why.

What to keep, for every service:

• The name of the person who died, the date, and the venue
• Who engaged you: the funeral home, or the family directly
• The family contact you dealt with
• Your fee and whether it was paid
• The final script or eulogy as delivered

Why: a family will come back to you years later and ask for a copy of what was said. It happens more than you would expect, and being the celebrant who still has it is worth a great deal. A funeral director will ask how many services you have led. And if anything is ever questioned, your record is the account of what actually happened.

We suggest keeping them for at least seven years. A simple folder for each service, named for the person, is enough. There is no system to buy.

Materials, and who owns what

This has three parts and they are easy to confuse.

What the Association provides

The ceremony scripts, the intake forms, the guides and the library material are provided for your use with families. They remain the property of the Certified Celebrants Association, and they are not to be sold, published, or passed to someone who is not certified.

Use them freely in your work. Adapt them, rewrite them, make them yours. What you may not do is hand the templates to a colleague who did not do the training, or offer them as part of a course of your own.

What you write

The eulogy you write is yours, and it is also, in a real sense, the family’s. Give them a copy without being asked. Do not publish it, quote it publicly, or use it as a sample without their permission. If you do ask, ask properly and accept no as an answer.

What belongs to someone else

This is the one celebrants get wrong most often. Poems, readings, song lyrics and scripture translations are frequently under copyright, and reading them aloud at a service is generally fine. Reproducing them in a printed order of service, publishing them on a website, or including them in something you sell is a different matter.

• Always name the author, and never imply that words are yours when they are not
• Ask before printing a poem or lyric in a booklet the family will keep
• Assume a modern poem is protected. Assume a hymn from 1840 is not, and check if it matters

The Code puts it plainly: never claim or imply ownership of ceremony content created by someone else, and accurately cite the author of any poem, reading, music or quotation used.

Staying in touch

Certified celebrants are added to the Association’s mailing list. That is how we send the monthly note and anything that affects your certification.

It is not marketing and we do not sell or share the list. You can leave it at any time using the link at the bottom of any email. Anything about your certification or your renewal will still reach you, because it must.

Staying certified

Certification is confirmed each year. The renewal asks whether you are still practising, whether your listing details are current, and whether you still stand behind the Core Values and the Code of Conduct.

Your first year is included in your course fee. After that, registration is $49 CAD a year, invoiced on the anniversary of your certification.

No card is stored and nothing is charged automatically. You will receive an invoice and a reminder. If it goes unpaid, the listing lapses. There is nothing to cancel and no letter to write.

That annual check is what makes the public register worth something. A family looking you up is relying on someone having confirmed, this year, that you are who the listing says you are.

How to reach us

A few protocols, so that questions get answered rather than lost.

• Single questions by text. Quick to ask, quick to answer.
• Do not simply call. Text first to arrange a time. We are often with a family and cannot take the call.
• Multiple questions by email. Number them and be specific. It works far better than a paragraph, and you will get a fuller answer.
• Use proper punctuation. We are not being fussy. It is how we can tell a question from a comment.

Everything reaches support@certifiedcelebrants.org. Direct numbers for Wayne, Rosanne and our team are in the email that comes with your certificate. Keep that one.

You will be asked to sign in. Access comes with certification in good standing.

If something goes wrong

Tell us. A complaint from a family, a service that went badly, a disagreement with a funeral home, anything that might affect the reputation of the Association or your standing in it.

Not because you will be in trouble. Because we would rather hear it from you first, and because the answer is usually straightforward if it arrives early. Write to support@certifiedcelebrants.org.