Not everyone will aspire to work in a funeral home because it may sound grim. It takes a person with attention to detail and organising skills to be a director at a funeral home. But for them, it is not demanding academically, but the job requires special training.

For an entry-level position, you need a General Certificate of Secondary Education, which includes maths and English or equivalent. Likewise, it is advantageous to take a training programme from the British Institute of Funeral Directors (BIFD) or the National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD).

The skills and training of a funeral director

Various reasons make you appreciate the work of a person who will be by your side when you are grieving over the loss of a loved one. Their training covers a range of knowledge, from different religious rituals, exhumation, repatriation, and burial at sea. They may also take a course in embalming. Further, they receive training on the stages of grief, grief counselling, and funeral ceremonies. While they are trained in various management functions, many of their skills need intuitive response and understanding of human behaviour and response to personal loss.

Dealing with funerals is hard. A funeral director has to treat every family member and remember that everyone is a loved one of another person. As a funeral director, they have to show respect, dignity, and empathy at all times.

You cannot help but appreciate the work of a funeral director. The job requires dedication and commitment, because every family may have a different set of wishes and requirements. Moreover, their job does not have fixed working hours. Funeral directors in Leeds may be required to be available 24 hours a day, all days of the week.

What can a funeral director do for you?

A funeral director is like a best friend who is there for you in your time of need. You will truly appreciate the things the person can do for you – alleviating your pain, and taking charge of the myriad of things to prepare and gather, particularly the paperwork that must be submitted to the proper authorities.

Here are the things that a funeral director typically does.

• Comfort the bereaved through grief counselling
• Coordinate the transfer of the body of the deceased from the place of death to a funeral home or mortuary
• Ensure that the embalmer/workers in the mortuary give professional mortuary services to the deceased
• Organise funeral services
• Acquire death and burial certificates on behalf of the deceased’s family
• Develop a schedule of events for the funeral ceremony
• Take charge of the funeral procession from the mortuary to the cremation or burial site
• Coordinate the work of pallbearers; supervise arrangers of the funeral service
• Help make funeral insurance and other death-related claims

As you can see, the tasks can be arranged and performed by you and your relatives. But they are not easy tasks considering your emotional and physical state. With the professional assistance of a funeral director, you have more time to attend to other matters. You can remain calm and comfortable and have the assurance that everything is properly handled while you spend the last remaining hours or days with the dearly departed.

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