Australian Home Funeral Alliance
The Australian Home Funeral Alliance (AHFA) is the Australian national peak body for home funerals and family-led death care.
AHFA’s mission is for every person dying in Australia to have access to a home funeral. It works to give families and communities more knowledge, confidence and choice around what happens after someone dies.
What does AHFA do?
AHFA sits between community and professional knowledge. It provides education, resources and advocacy around home funerals and family-directed death care, while promoting safe, ethical, sustainable and inclusive practice.
Its work includes:
- educating families, communities and practitioners
- providing information about home funerals and after-death care
- creating and distributing resources
- advocating for informed choice and greater agency for families
- supporting evidence-based best practice
- working with healthcare providers, researchers and policy makers
- advocating for changes to legislation and regulation where needed.
What is a home funeral?
AHFA describes a home funeral as a process where family, friends or community remain involved in caring for a person who has died, for as much or as little of the process as they wish.
That might include spending time with the body, washing and dressing, cooling, shrouding, placing the person in a coffin or casket, holding a ceremony, arranging transport, completing paperwork, and ultimately burial or cremation.
A home funeral does not mean that a family has to do everything themselves. A funeral service provider, celebrant, doula, nurse, community member or other experienced person can provide support where needed.
Why is AHFA useful?
AHFA challenges the assumption that everything after death has to be handed over to a funeral business.
Its resources help people understand what they can do themselves, what the law requires, when professional help may be useful, and how families can remain involved in the care of their person.
For Rest, this aligns closely with the idea that families should understand their choices rather than simply being given a traditional funeral package.
Education and resources
AHFA provides free online information sessions, videos, articles, a glossary, workshops and other resources.
Its home funeral resources include information about caring for a person at home, cooling, body care, ceremony, transportation and disposal options. AHFA also provides state and territory-specific information because the legal requirements differ across Australia.
AHFA also maintains directories of home-funeral-friendly funeral service providers, suppliers, organisations and training opportunities.
AHFA and family-led death care
AHFA supports the idea that people can have an active role in caring for someone who has died. That involvement can be very small or can extend through much of the time between death and burial or cremation.
The emphasis is not on doing everything yourself. It is on having the information and support to decide how involved you want to be.