Caroline Brunt has been a Registered Nurse for 42 years. She was trained in London, UK and her nursing experience includes intensive care, neurosurgery, palliative care, and outreach nursing with street populations. For the last 10 years she has been working as a nursing instructor at Vancouver Community College.

Caroline’s interest in end of life and MAID spans over 40 years of nursing and working with and helping people with end-of-life issues in hospital and community settings.

Cynthia Clark received her HBA from the University of Western Ontario and spent time working as a management consultant and in midstream oil and gas. She has lived and worked in several different countries, is a trained executive coach and seasoned advocate for many causes that she is passionate about. Cynthia is a very good communicator and has excellent interpersonal and networking skills. Cynthia guided her family through MAID in 2019 when her husband was diagnosed with brain cancer and again when her father chose MAID in 2023.

Robin Farr joined MFSS as a volunteer after supporting her dad through MAID in 2021 and realizing how little support there was for families. She joined first as a peer support volunteer and then took on the coordinator role before joining the organization’s first board of directors.

In her other life, Robin holds a BA as well as a master’s degree in professional communications, and is working towards a master’s in interdisciplinary studies with a focus on organizational development and leadership. She is the HR director for a mental health organization. Robin lives in Calgary, Alberta with her two kids and a dog.

Jasmin Alexander is a Certified Project Management Professional, Certified Product Manager, Certified Scrum Product Owner with a degree in Economics and Business Administration and works for a credit union in British Columbia.

In her spare time Jasmin loves to read and enjoys hikes with her husband and dog.

Apart from supporting MFSS in various roles, she also regularly volunteers for Dying with Dignity Canada’s Victoria chapter as well as Bridge C-14.

Signy Novak’s dad utilized MAID in 2018 and this was the most profound experience of her life. During this process she realized there was minimal support available for family and friends supporting someone on the MAID journey and that inspired her to start MAID Family Support Society.

Signy is very proud to be a Registered Nurse for 35 years. She received her diploma at Vancouver General Hospital followed by her degree at UBC. Signy currently teaches Nursing at Vancouver Community College and considers it a privilege to be working with students and having the opportunity to share her MAID experience with them.

Signy is very passionate about providing families with lived-experience peer support, and she brings her own lived experience with MAID to her work on the board, keeping the needs of families at the forefront.

As a physician in palliative care for the final 20 years of her career, Pauline Abrahams had the opportunity for many discussions with individuals and their families about futile treatments and suffering at the end of life. Many, including her mother, wanted to “end it all,” however MAID was not available at that time. From these experiences she was an early advocate of MAID and supported her father-in-law in that decision as well as other friends with family members going through the process.

Pauline is delighted to be involved with an organization that offers community support for a life transition that is more a part of the life cycle than a medical intervention. Her hope is to help normalize MAID in the community in general as a healthy personal choice for irremediable suffering.

Kelly Oberle lives in Vancouver. She holds a Masters of End-of-Life Studies from the University of Glasgow and a Bachelor of Administration from the University of Regina. She is also a Chartered Professional Accountant, an End-of-Life Doula, a certified Yoga instructor and bed-side volunteer at her local hospice.

Kelly’s interest in end-of-life care began in 2007 when her sister was dying of breast cancer. She experienced, for the first time, the concept of facilitating a ‘good death’ through specialized end-of-life care. She was inspired by what she experienced and committed herself to supporting the dying and their families. Kelly’s current interests are grief yoga, facilitating grief groups, and supporting family members of individuals who choose MAID.

Marja Tencate is originally from the Netherlands and came to Canada 30 years ago. She has dabbled in many careers, from LPN to mental health worker, stockbroker, zookeeper, hairdresser and now runs her private counselling practice.

She has volunteered 13 years for Rotary and 8 years for Hospice in many different capacities.

In her free time, Marja likes to do stained glass and create fun projects. Living rural and having plenty of furry companions keeps her close to nature and she enjoys the tranquility and quiet and simple things in life.