Whenever a family hires me to be their doula, I always think to myself what an amazing honor it is to be invited into such intimate spaces to serve them. I feel similarly honored now to be invited to serve as the president-elect for DONA International. Service to this amazing not-for-profit organization is something that I’ve been preparing for since I started working as a doula in 2014, including my awesome time learning about non-profit best practices and governance as a member of Junior League of Evansville. I’m excited to get to work on the inside of this organization and help further our mission and vision!
I co-authored my first academic chapter in the book Obstetric Violence: Realities and Resistance from Around the World in 2021, and I’m really excited to get to speak about some ideas that sprang from this work in two upcoming conference sessions. On October 20th I’ll be speaking at the Lamaze International Virtual Conference on “Obstetric Violence: The Role of the Childbirth Educator.” I even got to do a little Q & A about my talk with my good friend Sharon Muza on the Lamaze Blog if you’d like to read that. I’ll also be speaking at the DONA International Summit 2022 at the end of this month on “Doulas, Power, & Obstetric Violence.”
Being chosen to speak at these two events is so exciting and I hope I am able to spark some ideas in other childbirth educators and doulas through these talks. One of my biggest professional frustrations has always been people who are not doulas and childbirth educators telling us what we SHOULD be doing. This goes for so many subjects, but obstetric violence especially as there seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding about our jobs and how we can affect change at multiple levels in the work that we do. It might be my training in anthropology that has me insisting that an insider multi-level perspective is imperative for a fundamental understanding about approaches to fix this specific issue, and I’m excited to share my ideas with a wider audience.
Are you coming? I’d love to see you there and learn from you too if you’re speaking. There are some seriously impressive line-ups of speakers for both these online conferences. I’m also really excited to be able to connect with other childbirth professionals working to make a difference in the lives of families around the world.
I have other speaking gigs coming up that I’m really excited about doing. I’m headed up to DePauw University to get the chance to talk on a panel about the effects of the Dobbs decision on rights and justice. I may even get to finally meet my co-author Angela Castaneda in person! I’ll share more about the others as I am able.
Service and speaking are two of my favorite things to be able to do. I do not for one moment take for granted all the work that got me to this place and the people that have helped me along the way too. I also acknowledge what a privilege it is to even be able to do things like, unpaid service work as the president of a not-for-profit board. As with all things, I truly hope that my service and speaking make a difference and help push my little corner of the world to be a better place.