Target audience: the course is for health care personnel and helping relationship professionals only
Modality: The mixed-mode course(10 recorded FAD modules and 3 live online final modules) runs from March 13, 2026 to October 9, 2026.
Duration: 50 hours divided between: video lectures (26 hours), self-study (10 hours), live case discussion and supervision (14 hours) on the dates: Sept. 11, Sept. 18, Oct. 9 from 3 to 7 p.m.
Course Objectives.
The course provides theoretical knowledge and practical skills to:
- Welcome and support families affected by perinatal loss with expertise and sensitivity.
- Promote respectful accompaniment, recognizing individual needs in the bereavement journey.
- Integrate the most up-to-date knowledge in the fields of psychology and psychotraumatology, obstetrics, and nursing.
- Spreading better awareness and culture of perinatal bereavement in health and social care settings
- Networking in an integrated and multidisciplinary perspective with the various professional figures, who accompany women and couples in the process of grieving and new parenting
Course topics
First module – Supporting women, couples, and families with perinatal bereavement experience: presentation and framing of the salutogenic and trauma-oriented model
Second module – Infertility
Third module – Miscarriage
Fourth module – The termination of pregnancy due to pathology
Fifth module – Death in utero
Sixth module – Postnatal death
Seventh module – Bereavement in the perinatal time
Eighth module – Psychotraumatology of perinatal bereavement
Ninth module – Prevention, diagnosis and treatment of complicated bereavement
Tenth module – Expectant again: pregnancy and parenting after perinatal bereavement
Eleventh module (live) – analysis and conceptualization of clinical cases brought by our lecturers
Twelfth module (live) – analysis and conceptualization of clinical cases brought by the trainees
Thirteenth module (live) – presentation of final work in small groups.
Scientific Direction
Dr. Claudia Ravaldi, psychiatrist, psychotherapist, PhD in neuroscience, master’s degree in history and techniques of children’s literature, CiaoLapo Foundation
Professor Alfredo Vannacci, medical pharmacologist and toxicologist, University of Florence, CiaoLapo Foundation
Lecturers
Course instructors are professional men and women specializing in gynecology, obstetrics, psychiatry, psychotherapy, and counseling in the helping relationship with many years of certified experience on perinatal bereavement, both from a research perspective and from the perspective of clinical and field support.
Enrollment and costs
Course registration includes:
- 13 teaching modules on Moodle platform (10 recorded, 3 live)
- access to registrations from March 13 to October 31, 2026
- teaching materials
- Two hours of mentoring (during the period between Sept. 21 and Oct. 2) for the writing of the final clinical case
Completion of the course also enables:
- Access the 30 hours of supervision required for enrollment in the CiaoLapo Foundation’s Perinatal Loss Assistant ( PERLA) registry
Early Bird: the cost for registration is 400 euros until January 31, 2026
From February 1, 2026, the registration fee will be 500 euros
PLEASE NOTE: 80 places are available: applications, complete in all their parts, will be accepted in order of arrival.
No CME credits are provided
Enrollment deadline
Registration will be closed upon completion of 80 places, and in any case no later than April 1, 2026
Sign up for this page.
The PerLA Registry – Perinatal Loss Assistant
The registry PerLA – Perinatal loss assistant, brings together health care workers and helping relationship professionals who have completed training in perinatal bereavement certified by the CiaoLapo Foundation
To obtain PerLA certification, the practitioner must complete the 50-hour training and conduct 30 hours of case supervision in the following two years.
The PerLA registry will be used as a reference list of professionals with certified training in perinatal bereavement for couples who apply to our Association.
