Grief Tender Mentoring Program
Speaker Series
Welcome!
The below talks are part of the Speaker Series sponsored by the Grief Tender Mentoring Program — a six-month learning community focused on cultivating community-based grief ritual leadership. The program is guided by elders Thérèse Charvet and Laurence Cole and is now in its fifth year, with more than 150 alumni and 56 participants in the current cohort. The series offers a space for members of the mentorship program and the wider grief tending community to gather, learn, and strengthen our shared capacity to meet the grief of these times. We hope you can join us!
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Organizers
Siena Tenisci, MA, LMHC (Senior Facilitator)
Siena Tenisci is a Senior Facilitator for the Grief Tender Mentoring Program and organizer of the Speaker Series. She is also a mother, therapist, and founder of Northwest Grief Tending, a practice dedicated to offering accessible grief rituals and supporting community-based healing.
Thérèse Charvet (Program Director & Guiding Elder)
Thérèse Charvet is the Program Director and a guiding elder for the Grief Tender Mentoring Program, and land steward of the forrest sanctuary Sacred Groves, where she has hosted grief rituals and retreats since 2002. She trained for many years with her mentor, the late Sobonfu Somé.
Laurence Cole (Lead Facilitator & Guiding Elder)
Laurence Cole is a lead facilitator and guiding elder for the Grief Tender Mentoring Program. A song elder and ritualist, he trained extensively with Malidoma and Sobonfu Somé and has supported grief rituals since the late 1990s. He joined the Sacred Groves grief retreat team in 2009 and continues to share ritual and group singing widely.
Grief Tender Mentoring Program Team
The program is supported by a core team of six members—Thérèse Charvet, Laurence Cole, Siena Tenisci, Alex Eisenburg, Jordan Lyon, and Sarah Jackson—along with 10+ program alumni serving as pod leaders and elders in training.