Hello and welcome to the online version of the Developing Doulas preparation course! Kick off your shoes and get comfy!
This place will be accessible to you forever, and is, in effect, your course manual. We are constantly amending and adding to this content as we develop (in true DD style!) so do check back regularly throughout your doula career.
We are so pleased you’re here and we do hope you enjoy reading and watching this content. We are looking forward so much to sharing real-life space with the covid-cohorts of new doulas! You will be a very special generation of doulas!
There are places in this online content where we refer to activities you will be doing with your cohort of trainees. If you are reading this before your zoom sessions start, just skip those bits and carry on. There are no expectations that you finish working your way through this stuff before your zoom sessions begin. Work at your own pace – this is your journey, to tailor make as you see fit.
Can I introduce our centre mandala. Here is a picture of it on day one, with some of the manual pages spread out on it. This is the place where we gather at times during the course, to sit close and share deep feelings and thoughts. Being unable to touch doesn’t mean we can’t still connect in this place and create a power-circle of wonderful people who feel driven to support birthing families.
We hope you’ll enjoy the course. We know what a leap of faith it is to embark on a doula course and we promise to work hard on making sure that faith is justified! If you have any worries or questions during the course, do feel you can talk to us, either in the facebook group that accompanies this course or privately, by phone, email or zoom/skype, just let us know what you need.
During this course you might have preconceptions, opinions or prejudices challenged. This might be painful or inspire regret, anger or defensiveness. Remember, this is a safe place to express those feelings, either in the group or privately.
Mostly, we hope you have fun as you work through the course. There are no tests or exams at the end of modules, you will be able to go backwards as well as move forward through the modules so that you can review content that you have already read, if you want. There will be a combination of written content and some videos. We do hope you’ll join us in the facebook group for real-time sharing, facebook lives and general chitchat.
So let’s get started! Dive in and enjoy! Once you’ve completed a section, just click on to the next bit.
It goes without saying that the content you’ll read and watch in this course belongs to Developing Doulas (apart of course, from the external links to other resources). We trust that you will not take this material and present it as your own, or plagiarize it in any way. You are welcome to quote things from the course, just please, please remember to credit Developing Doulas. This is practicing kindness, consideration and the ethical behaviour we expect of high quality doulas.
DDoula Love, Maddie, Zara, Katie, Aimee and Verina x