Trudy James, chaplain and film producer, is a graduate of the University of Kansas and Union Theological Seminary in New York City and a retired interfaith hospital chaplain. She learned hands-on lessons about death, dying and grief in her 50’s while creating a CareTeam program for faith-based volunteers in the early days of the AIDS epidemic in Arkansas. Her ground-breaking CareTeam work with AIDS was honored at the Clinton White House. Nine years later, Trudy created an AIDS Care Team program in Seattle and also served as a chaplain at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. After retiring, she created a business called Heartwork in hopes of using what she had learned to help others. She convened Grief and Loss groups in senior housing, facilitated three-day Aging Wisely Together retreats for women at Whidbey Institute, and spent four years pioneering 4-session community-based end-of-life planning workshops. She then spent two years producing the 30-minute film, Speaking of Dying, which reflects the heart of those workshops.

Trudy has trained eleven facilitators who lead end-of-life workshops and screen the film in the Puget Sound area, Palm Springs, CA, Northwest Arkansas, and Minneapolis, MN. She is on the Advisory Board for End of Life, Washington. She offers one-on-one support for individuals, couples and family members dealing with illness, grief and loss, and end of life. Read her recent blogs here: Speaking of Dying Blog

Trudy James ‘walks the talk’, meaning she has worked for many years with persons in the dying process. Trudy is also the most engaging, lively, entertaining, efficient group facilitator that I have had the pleasure of learning from !!!

— Donna Crews Finney

 

“Trudy James may ask you some gently probing questions, but she is less interested in giving you her answers than in helping you give expression to your own answers.” –

— Peter G. Beidler, Professor emeritus of Lehigh University, author of the new book, Parkinson Pete on Living and Dying with Parkinson’s Disease