41st TCF National Conference

The Compassionate Friends National Conference is a weekend spent surrounded by other bereaved parents, grandparents and siblings. It is a place where hope grows and friendships are made with others who truly understand. With inspirational keynote speakers, abundant workshops for everyone’s wants and needs, and a remembrance candle lighting program culminating with the annual Walk to Remember, this time of healing and hope is the gift we give ourselves. Join us as together we remember and share the everlasting love we have for our precious children, siblings and grandchildren.

The 41st TCF National Conference will be in held in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 27-29, 2018. “Gateway to Hope and Healing” is the theme of this year’s event, which promises more of this last’s great National Conference experience. The 2018 Conference will be held at the Marriott St. Louis Grand Hotel. We’ll keep you updated with details here, on the national website as well as on our TCF/USA Facebook Page and elsewhere as they become available. Plan to come and be a part of this heartwarming experience. 

• Choose to attend over a hundred different workshops and sharing sessions, given by professionals and also individuals just like you.
• Take advantage of “Healing Haven” to receive free personal services such as a massage.
• Discover the special art project, “100 Siblings Remembered,” commissioned as a tribute to our lost siblings, created by Jessica Wilson.
• Craft items to commemorate the love for your family member in the “Crafty Corner”.
• Step away for a quiet moment of pause in the “Reflection Room”.
• Explore the TCF Marketplace offering items for purchase that are meaningful to all on the grief journey together.
• Reflect back on the conference by thumbing through your 2018 Keepsake Memorial Journal.

View Conference Program Book
2018 Keepsake Memorial Journal

Featuring Keynote Speakers

Nisha Zenoff, Ph.D. LMFT is a California licensed marriage and family counselor, psychotherapist, grief counselor, and dance/movement therapist and bereaved mother of Victor Robinson Zenoff. She is the author of The Unspeakable Loss: How Do You Live After a Child Dies? published in 2017.

Stéphane Gerson is a writer whose memoir Disaster Falls: A Family History (Crown, 2017) explores the death of his eight-year-old son Owen and its impact within his family. Gerson is also a historian at NYU, where he directs the Institute of French Studies.

Basia Mosinski, MB MFA is the founder and CEO of OneLife.Coach – Mind, Body, & Spiritual Alignment Coach. She is TCF Newport Beach Chapter founder and leader. Her stepson Logan died in 1993 in a head-on train collision; her son Richard died in 2014 of a pulmonary embolism on an airplane.

Chris Lourenco was only nine-years-old when his older brothers, Zachary 17 and Alexander 14, were electrocuted during a sailboat ride that struck low lying power lines. Chris attended his first TCF national conference in Boston in 2005 and met other surviving siblings who could relate to what he was going through.