Current management team

Dana Lammers
Dana Lammers

Dana took advantage of our offer a few years ago after her father suddenly passed away. As a social worker, she has been working with children and young people for many years. Topics such as mourning, nature education and pastoral care have accompanied her professionally and privately for a long time. In 2018, she therefore decided to support Junge Trauer Essen. Due to this professional context and her private commitment, she has already taken part in various training courses on the topics of child and youth grief and terminal care. She completed further training as a family grief counselor (according to M. Schroeter-Rupieper) in 2020. She is involved in the outpatient hospice service at the Alfried Krupp hospital Rüttenscheid, as well as in the function of hospice attendant for the outpatient ecumenical hospice group in Werden.

Peter Pfand
Peter Pfand

Due to personal experiences with the loss of a close family member, Peter has developed the desire to pass on these profound and life-changing experiences to people who have had similar experiences. His father died when Peter was still a teenager. Since there were no comparable grief groups for young people at that time, Peter passes on his knowledge in order to be able to help grieving people as part of a voluntary work. In 2019, he therefore decided to support Junge Trauer Essen. As a contact person for IT matters, he can also optimally use his full-time passion here. He is involved in the outpatient hospice service at the Alfried Krupp hospital Rüttenscheid and has undergone further training to become a family bereavement counselor (according to M. Schroeter -Rupieper) completed in 2023.

Friedrich Stratmann
Friedrich Stratmann

Friedrich has been working as a certified funeral speaker since 2020. In conversations with relatives in the run-up to funeral services, he repeatedly found how good it is for mourners to talk about what really moves them after the death of a loved one in a protected space. That is why he completed further training as a bereavement counselor in 2021 in order to further deepen his knowledge and wealth of methods in accompanying bereaved people. After the death of his father in his teens, he himself began to deal with the meaning of life at an early age. Elements from mental and mindfulness training (breath, yoga, meditation) also flow into his work as a grief counselor. After moving from Stuttgart to Essen, he decided in spring 2022 to support Junge Trauer Essen.

Founding team

Caren Baesch
Caren Baesch

Caren has been a freelance family bereavement counselor since 2014 (according to M. Schroeter-Rupieper ) and grief-centered specialist advisor according to the guidelines of the Bundesverbandes Trauerbegleitung. She is the owner of the funeral home Alternative Bestattungen – Caren Baesch. She also put her professional knowledge to use as head of the youth grief group Essen and shares it with interested people as a freelance speaker. The youth grief group Essen handed Caren over to the current management team for the transformation into Junge Trauer Essen. In addition, she is socially involved as a qualified and voluntary worker in the outpatient hospice service at the Alfried Krupp hospital Rüttenscheid. She is also a scout with the Deutschen Pfadfinderschaft St. Georg.

Karin Ricken
Karin Ricken

Karin worked for 25 years as a teacher at a special needs school with a focus on intellectual development. Since she retired in 2004, she has worked as a qualified and voluntary worker in the outpatient hospice service at the Alfried Krupp hospital Rüttenscheid. During this time she has a qualification for grief counseling on Trauerinstitut A. Laurs acquired. In addition, she has completed a training in professionalized bereavement support and loss management at the university of Essen. As the mother of a son and grandmother of two grandchildren, as well as her work as a teacher, she has a strong connection to young people. That is why she offered her skills as a grief counselor to the young people in the former youth grief group Essen.