We begin on
Tuesday April 15th, 2025
1-3pm ET

The mentorship meets weekly
for nine weeks

 

After several iterations of this course for doulas, I decided to open it up to anyone who identifies as a “caregiver”. When did you first doula somebody? Not do the work of a doula, but doula, the verb. As in, when did you first hold someone up, providing advice, information, guidance, emotional support and physical comfort? To discover why you were called to care giving work requires delving into what it actually means to doula more broadly. Connecting with your calling is about connecting with your whole, adult self. I have nearly twenty years of experience as a birth worker/educator, parent and caregiver. I believe it is vital for anyone already deep in care work or exploring the possibility, to prioritize mentorship. The mission of this mentorship is to hold and make space for caregivers: to help them decide if care work is right for them and un blur their motivations for doing it; to understand and adopt appropriate boundaries; and to reflect on the energetic exchange inherent in the work and what is required to sustain themselves in it.

  • Your own beautiful or, alternately, traumatic birth/ childhood or adolescent experience may be what nudged you towards care work and we’ll unpack how the way you arrived here can inform your approach.

  • Care work is community work and it’s also, as we’ll explore, work that is rooted in reminding clients that they do indeed have a community that they can lean on; you’ll learn how to braid those worlds together for the people you serve.

  • Burnout rate with this kind of work, which demands so much of you physically, mentally and emotionally, is often an inevitability, leading to depression, dread, even dissociation. We’ll teach both longtime and newly certified birth workers how to do this work without losing yourself.

  • Birth work is energy work. And this type of energetic exchange demands deeper personal reflection to be able to be fully present in this role. We’ll show you how to do the self investigation required—a proverbial cleaning of your mirror—so you can show up for the families you serve.

Whether you’ve been doula’ing for twenty years or are recently trained, you will find immense value in our collective “unlearning” and mentorship. We conjured this space to cultivate deeper compassion for our fellow birth workers while we all serve in this incredibly complex role. We are here for you every step of the way.