Program educators

Christine Longaker is the Education Director of the SCP and the former director and staff trainer of the Hospice of Santa Cruz County USA. She has devoted her life to the care of the dying and training others to do the same. Christine has a worldwide reputation as a compelling speaker and has given many seminars on the emotional, practical and spiritual care for the dying. She has studied with Sogyal Rinpoche since 1980 and is the author of Facing Death and Finding Hope. Read more...

Judy Arpana is a student of Sogyal Rinpoche and Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche. She is a mother, grandmother, storyteller, and professional counselor whose wisdom and integrity are distilled from a rich and varied life. She brings to this work a vast compassion and depth of experience from studying the dying process for over twenty years with many teachers including Tibetan lamas and from those she has supported through the process of dying.

Cathy Blanc is a practising doctor, homeopath, and acupuncturist in the South of France. She has been a student of Sogyal Rinpoche for 11 years. Cathy set up and continues to guide the Tonglen Association, a group which offers support and care for people going through crisis and change. Cathy and T.A. are now working with Association Soins Palliative in Montpellier to develop a training for volunteers that includes spiritual care, as well a helping develop a mobile palliative care team.

Kirsten DeLeo is an experienced Spiritual Care Program educator based in Northern California. She worked for more than six years as an hospice volunteer with the Zen Hospice Project and now facilitates hospice volunteer trainings and workshops for professionals and the public. Kirsten is trained in Hakomi method of body-centered psychotherapy and has a counseling practice in San Francisco. She is a longtime student of Sogyal Rinpoche and the director of the Spiritual Care Program in the USA.

Annie Eichenholz is a senior Spiritual Care Program educator living in Santa Rosa, California. For over 15 years, she has worked as a volunteer and hospice nurse at Home Hospice in Sonoma County. She is also certified as a nurse educator in end-of-life care by the End-of-Life Nursing Education Consortium (ELNEC). She has co-facilitated volunteer caregiver training for hospice volunteers. Annie has studied with Sogyal Rinpoche, author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, for over 20 years.

Almut Göppert is a doctor at a clinic for radiooncology and palliative medicine in a university teaching hospital in North Germany. Since 1989 she has been actively involved in the German hospice movement. First as a hospice volunteer and later as a doctor, she has cared for terminally ill patients, primarily those suffering from cancer. Almut has been a student of Sogyal Rinpoche since 1994 and has followed the Rigpa instructor training. She was trained as a Spiritual Care Program educator by Christine Longaker and regularly leads meditation and spiritual care study groups.

Ralph Hodgson specialises in working with living with illness and injury. He has been a member of the Spiritual Care Team since 1997 helping with its growth and development. He has instructed on numerous courses on meditation and Buddhist teachings over the last 12 years. He has worked as a carer with the elderly and the dying. He has also done training in bereavement counselling. He currently facilitates the Living with Illness and Injury Group and led a retreat in Ireland on this last year.

Steve Noakes has been part of the Spiritual Care Team for the last five years. He specialises in presenting workshops on Living Wills, in the UK and abroad. He is a School and Family Link Worker supporting young people and their families at one of the largest secondary schools in the South East. As a volunteer he has also buddied people living with HIV/AIDS for seven years and has also becoming involved with St Michael’s Hospice. He provides training for Hospice volunteers and staff as well as helping in the development of a children’s bereavement project.

Rosamund Oliver is a Senior Spiritual Care Educator, involved in developing the Spiritual Care Programme in the UK since its inception, offering training for people working in the caring professions. Working in NHS psychiatry in a London hospital, she specialised in bereavement work with the elderly. She also tutored at St Joseph’s Hospice on the ENB course ‘Working with the Dying and their Families’. She set up a meditation project in Pentonville prison. As a registered (UKCP) Core Process psychotherapist and supervisor, she has a private practice in North London.

Pamela Russell, BA,MSW, is an Educator in Rigpa's Spiritual Care Program, leading study groups and offering educational programs for healthcare professionals. She has studied with Sogyal Rinpoche for 17 years and is a meditation instructor with Ripga. Pam has worked for more than 20 years as an Activities Director, specializing in care for elders in long term care facilities. She currently works as a social worker in New York State focusing her interest in palliative and hospice care.

Anne Sadie is a Spiritual Care Educator who has worked as part of the Spiritual Care Team for the past seven years. She trained with the North London Hospice as a volunteer home visitor, and worked there until the death of her youngest child in 1986. In 1989 she trained as a bereavement counsellor with the Harrow Deanery, later working as a home visitor for St Luke's Hospice. In 1996 she was sponsored by the Hospice to attend Communications and Counselling Skills a course run by Help the Hospices. She ran a spiritual care project on Loving Kindness for the Odyssey Trust last year.

Christine Whiteside, senior Spiritual Care Program educator, has been a student of Sogyal Rinpoche since 1978. She has worked as a Rigpa meditation instructor for over fifteen years, facilitating courses at Dzogchen Beara and throughout Ireland in meditation, compassion practices and spiritual care for the dying.