About Conference

From 3-5th November at Trinity Wharf Hotel in Tauranga the Sands National Conference will cater to 150-200 delegates. Our aim is to provide an uplifting experience for all attendees so they can feel welcome, able to reignite friendships and start new ones with other families and professionals alike.

We want to encourage togetherness in learning and teaching from one another and above all else, be around people who can relate to our own experiences. Of course there will be tears. And there will be sadness and grief. And there will be connectedness and togetherness as we comfort those around us.

​We will strive to make this conference memorable and beneficial on many levels to all those delegates that we are honoured to host in 2017. We have large shoes to fill as all Sands conferences have been incredible to attend, with a growing population attending each year.
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Who We Are

Sands is a voluntary, non-profit organisation that supports parents, families and whanau following the loss of a baby or infant at any gestation, any age and any circumstance. We are an inclusive, non-judgmental group of bereaved parents paying it forward. 

We support parents and their families who have experienced the death of a baby or infant, we provide memory making materials to hospitals and in the community, we provide education to health and caring professionals, and we encourage research into the prevention of baby and infant loss.

Every two years since 1997, Sands has held a national conference. You can see the different themes and venues of our conferences since 1997 here. This is our 11th biennial conference and the first hosted by Sands BOP.  We are excited to be welcoming bereaved parents and families, health and caring professionals, researchers, social service providers, other grief and loss support agencies, and anyone interested in pregnancy, baby and infant loss to our 2017 conference.

Nau mai, haere mai.

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Our Theme
About our theme....  Beyond the Waves  


Beyond the Waves is about our grief journey. Dealing with the turmoil of the moment and looking towards the hope there is to come. Beyond the Waves there are new horizons and many treasures for us to discover.

Being a city by the sea and the Mount Maunganui beach being so well known we decided to keep our theme of a nautical nature. The beach, sea, sand, ocean, waves, shells, etc can all be so symbolic to people, especially in grief. So we felt it quite fitting to follow this theme throughout our 2017 Conference.


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