$520

Core Teacher

Sabia (she/they) - The Black Doula - is a Radical Doula, Educator, Doula Business Coach, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (in training), and Reproductive Justice Advocate. She founded Birthing Advocacy Doula Trainings in 2019 with the goal of bringing necessary education to doulas that are seeking to go beyond the traditional doula role and into advocacy work for the communities that need them.

Core Teacher

JB (they/he) - of Love Over Fear Wellness and Birth - is a full-spectrum doula and community educator, with a passion for pelvises, humans, trauma-informed care, and the complexities of transformative justice. As a transmasculine, non-binary person, they are practiced in the art (and awkwardness) of transition, and bring this knowing and compassion to their work as an educator. He supports people through reproductive and identity-related transitions, and provides education to other professionals towards the end goal of a more affirming and gender-liberated world.

Core Teacher

Deirdre Bain (they/them) - is a queer, nonbinary, full-spectrum doula, childbirth educator, sex educator in training, BADT Operations Manager, & BADT Canada Lead Teacher. Deirdre has been practicing doula care on unceded Algonquin Anishnaabe territory in their hometown of Ottawa, ON, since 2017. Through their private practice, Orchid Doula Services, Deirdre seeks to provide queer-centred & actively anti-oppressive care to families throughout their reproductive journey.

Core Teacher

Jessica (she/her) is a full-spectrum doula, childbirth educator & lactation specialist who has been practicing since 2018 in Ottawa, ON, unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe territory. In 2019, Jessica started her role as a perinatal outreach worker working in collaboration with the urban Inuit community and the ORACLE midwifery team providing care to individuals experiencing substance use, mental illness, homelessness, violence, and/or involvement with the child welfare system. Jessica is the lead doula and co-founder of Rooted & Resilient: The Black-led Doula and Breastfeeding Program established in 2020 which provides affordable doula and breastfeeding support to Black parents in the Ottawa-Gatineau region. Jessica is the Chair of the Board of Directors for Community Doula Access. Jessica is currently completing the certification requirements to become an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant.

Core Teacher

Davinah (she/they) is a Black full-spectrum doula and educator originally from Tongva land, otherwise known as Los Angeles, CA and is now living on unceded Coast Salish and Duwamish territory, commonly known as Seattle, WA. As a birth worker, Davinah is passionate about supporting her community as they make connections to the internal, spiritual and physiological landscapes that the reproductive spectrum introduces us to. She believes in ritual and ceremony to mark thresholds and commune with our grief, transitions, and becoming. Davinah relies deeply on her intuition, humor, and story-telling to create medicinal offerings to those that she supports. Davinah is most passionate about grief/loss and the postpartum experience.

Core Teacher

Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu (they/she) is the Director of Project LETS, a national grassroots organization led by and for folks with lived experience of mental illness, Disability, trauma, and neurodivergence. Their work specializes in building peer support collectives and community mental health care structures outside of state-sanctioned systems of “care” -- grounded in principles of anti-racism and Disability/Transformative/Healing Justice.⁠

As a skilled facilitator and curriculum developer, they have led hundreds of trainings across various sectors for students and practitioners. They have also served as a consultant for mental health policies, program development, and accessibility. As a queer, mad, Disabled, neurodivergent human with lived experience of psychiatric incarceration, they are an active community organizer invested in disrupting multiple systems which disproportionately discriminate, harm, and kill our community members worldwide.⁠

Masterclass Teacher

Cristen (she/her) left a career in public affairs in 2011 after the birth of her son to study American maternity care and women’s rights within it. In 2012, she joined ImprovingBirth as vice president, spearheading a multi-year grassroots media strategy to get the maternity care crisis in national news, creating a legal advocacy hotline for pregnant women, and raising awareness around obstetric violence. She is co-creator of the Exposing the Silence Project and host of Birth Allowed Radio. As the founder of Birth Monopoly, Cristen advocates for a freer maternity care market, working closely with leading national advocates, organizations, and birth lawyers, as well as educating the public and healthcare providers about women’s human and legal rights in childbirth. After six years of full-time work on the issue of obstetric violence, Cristen is now working on a documentary film on the subject: Mother May I? Cristen lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with her son, Henry.

Masterclass Teacher

Erika Davis is a Black, Jewish, Lesbian Birth worker who lives and works in the Puget Sound Region on the ancestral lands of the Coastal Salish people. She's an advocate for Black and queer folks who give birth, infertility and pregnancy loss advocate, and racial justice advocate. She's the owner and founder of Whole Body Pregnancy, LLC, a birth organization focused on bringing awareness to the mental, physical, and spiritual aspects of Labor, Birth, and Postpartum period. When she's not doing birth work she can be found in her vegetable and herb garden or writing. She's married to the love of her life and had their first child in the summer of 2021.