Conscious Birth Collective

TOGETHER, a BIPOC Doula Mentorship Program

1:1 Mentoring, Community Building, Virtual Workshops & Apprenticeship

 

Our Mentors

Emilie Rodriguez (she/her)

Emilie Rodriguez (she/her)

Founder Ashe Birthing Services & The Bridge Directory

Emilie Rodriguez is a traditional birth and postpartum doula that addresses birthing people’s nutritional, physical, emotional, and spiritual well being.

Nicole JeanBaptiste (she/her)

Nicole JeanBaptiste (she/her)

Founder, Sésé Doula Services and Co-Founder, Bx (Re)Birth and Progress Collective

Nicole JeanBaptiste is a full spectrum community-based doula offering a calming, culturally informed, humanistic approach to the support she provides to individuals before, during and after childbirth.

Myla Flores (she/her) CD, LCCE, SpBCPE, CLC

Myla Flores (she/her) CD, LCCE, SpBCPE, CLC

Founder of The Birthing Place, My Loving Doula, and Co-founder of Uptown Village Cooperative

Myla is a birth doula, postpartum doula, birth assistant, Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator, Spinning Babies Certified Parent Educator, and Certified Lactation Counselor.

Aida Alfonzo (she/her)

Aida Alfonzo (she/her)

Co-founder of Innatus Birth

Aida came into birth work about a year after giving birth to her son in 2014. She had a very traumatic birth at a Brooklyn Hospital that ended in a cesarean section under general anesthesia.

Evelyn Alvarez (she/they)

Evelyn Alvarez (she/they)

Co-Founder, Bx (Re)Birth and Progress Collective

Evelyn is a badass. She does what feels right to her and helps others do the same. 

Evelyn also loves to laugh and lives for jokes.

Naima Beckles (she/her)

Naima Beckles (she/her)

Founder and Director, For Your Birth

Naima is an educator, birth prep coach, doula and founding director of For Your Birth — an intentionally diverse birth work consultancy in New York City.

Te-Ana Souffrant (she/her)

Te-Ana Souffrant (she/her)

Founder, The Arch App

Te-Ana Souffrant is a wife and mother of three sons. She developed her passion and love for people and health care as a young child, going to work with and being cared for and nurtured by her grandmother, Angela, who worked in Bedford-Stuyvesant, in Brooklyn, NY, as an office manager for a cardiologist who remains in her life today.

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Meet the Mentors

About the Program

Twice a year, Conscious Birth Collective, a concerted community of leaders in the doula profession, accepts a small cohort of birth workers who have taken a birth doula training, and have a committed interest and readiness to expand their work in this very special field.

Oftentimes the challenging situations of doulas unsure about themselves, as they embark on supporting their first births, play a role in their ability to dive into the field. Other times, they have supported few or many births yet believe they can still reap benefits from mentorship. This spring, we offer a unique opportunity to work within a community of BIPOC doulas as you support birth and grow your business!

Our mentors have something special in common as founding members of collectives: Myla Flores of Uptown Village Cooperative, Nicole Jean Baptiste of Sésé, Birthing Freedom/ Bronx (Re)Birth and Progress Collective, Aida Alfonzo of Innatus Birth, Evelyn Alvarez of Bronx (Re)Birth and Progress Collective, Naima Beckles of For Your Birth, and Emilie Rodriguez of Ashe Birthing Services. We are individuals who value community. We are each uniquely experienced in the birth field, can offer loving guidance and direction, help provide accountability, and of course plenty of support.

Our Mentorship Program is offered for birth professionals who are Black, Indigenous and/or People of Color, whether they are brand new to the birth community, established birth workers looking to grow their expertise and enhance their practice, or anywhere in between. At this time, we are accepting ten birth doulas into our 24-week hybrid apprenticeship. Virtual and in person, we have two dynamic workshops a month, tailored to the needs of the mentees, and taught by our mentors. The mentees will also shadow their mentor in prenatals, births, postpartum, and lactation, depending on their desires or goals. This shadowing component is what makes our program so unique! We will have bimonthly check ins and also group meetings once a month.

By the end of the program, our mentees will have a better understanding of the flow of a client’s perinatal experience from doula hire to postpartum, have seen different ways of conducting interviews, prenatals, and birth support in the early and active stages. We provide insight around pushing, the immediate postpartum, how to support belly/cesarean births, and help folks build confidence in navigating the medical industrial complex. Our workshops will address lactation support, the extended sacred postpartum, sustainability in birth work, crafting your niche, birth justice, and much more to support our mentees as they develop a stronger sense of self in this special work.

Our ideal mentees are people who have already taken an introductory birth doula workshop, who are seeking confidence in their work, mentorship by a seasoned doula, and a solid community. We value our growing community and intend to be a place where one can draw mass amounts of motivation and encouragement from each other in a safe place.

For those seeking certification with any of the various certifying bodies, you may use a combination of the births you supported in our time together — by way of our referrals, Village Birth, or Mentor/Mentee Duos (shadow opportunities) or your own personal resources to gain clients.

The cost to enroll in the Mentorship Program is $1650. We are pleased to be able to offer some partial scholarships.

Contact Us

 

Have questions? Email consciousbirthcollective@gmail.com