Sands NZ & VCA Student Series 101
Sands NZ & VCA invites students who will be working with bereaved whānau upon graduation to join us for the 2026 Student Series 101. This includes midwifery, nursing, psychology, medical, counselling and sonography students. And we also invite new graduate midwives in their mentorship year.

We will be offering 10 topics over 10 months in 2026 for the Student Series `101 course. You will have access to online content and also be invited to join our monthly discussion webinars with bereaved whānau. (See below for an explanation of why we've changed things).

The 2026 Student Series will start on Monday 2nd February and end on Monday 30th November 2026.

The 10 topics for the 101 course are -
  • Self-Care in the Baby Loss Space 
  • Grief and Baby Loss
  • Memory-Making When a Baby Dies
  • Baby Loss Legalities and Definitions
  • Caring for Māori Whānau
  • Caring for Pasifika Aiga and Indian Families
  • What Should I Say and Not Say?
  • Fathers/Partners and Baby Loss
  • Perinatal Pathology
  • Informed Pregnancy

If you'd like to register for the Student Series 101 course that starts in February 2026, please click here.


The Student Series is free, thanks to the generosity of Sands NZ.
If you have any questions, please email me on [email protected]


Why have we changed the Student Series?
Looking at the completion statistics for 2025 (22.8%), we see that we're probably trying to squash too much information into our Student Series. All of our students have incredibly busy lives (study, whānau , jobs, placements) and we see that it's not realistic to expect you'll get through the 18 topics we were offering. And it can be disheartening when you have all the best intentions in the world but are not able to complete, despite feeling this is such an important topic.

So we've broken them into two courses - Student Series 101 and 201. Each has ten topics and each course takes 10 hours. The 201 course will be offered on demand, and is kind of like an 'advanced course'. The topics for 201 are:
  • Early Loss
  • Decision-Making Following an Unexpected Diagnosis in Pregnancy
  • Perinatal Hospice 
  • Ending a Wanted Pregnancy
  • Rainbow Inclusive Perinatal Bereavement Care
  • Pregnancy and Parenting After Loss
  • When a Baby Dies in NICU
  • Loss in a Multiple Pregnancy
  • Models of Care
  • The Physical Care of a Deceased Baby 


If you still have questions after this explanation, please email Vicki on [email protected]