Meet the Doula Fund Design Team
There has been increasing recognition of doula care in Canada – particularly for Black, Indigenous, and 2SLGBTQ+ communities, for whom systemic discrimination within the health system can result in adverse physical and mental health outcomes. Rooted in an interest in improving perinatal mental health for equity-deserving groups, we held two gatherings on this topic in 2022.
Based on feedback from participants, we’re initiating steps towards the creation of a multi-year doula mutual aid fund. This is intended as a collaboratively governed pot of funding allocated to doulas/doula organizations/collectives to support immediate needs as they arise, with minimal access barriers. Click here to read more on the challenges faced by both doulas and clients that this fund would seek to address.
In early 2023, we launched a Call for Expressions of Interest for a grant to collaboratively design this mutual aid fund. Click here for full details on the callout.
We're excited to introduce the team of doulas who will be designing the concept for this mutual aid fund over the coming months, while engaging other community-based doulas and stakeholders in the design process.
Sabrina Flack (she/her)
Sabrina is a queer, mixed race (Black and European) settler living on Chief Drygeese Territory in Denendeh, traditional lands of the Yellowknives Dene First Nation (Yellowknife, NT).
She is a full-spectrum doula, as well as the co-founder and project director of the Northern Birthwork Collective (NBC), a reproductive justice advocacy project in the NWT that delivers cost-supported doula-led programming for pregnancy and all pregnancy outcomes.
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Through her work at NBC, she has developed an abortion support program, a program supporting families impacted by the birth evacuation policy, and supported the development of an Indigenous Birthwork Training program for the NWT alongside a team of Indigenous knowledge keepers. Additionally, she advocates for changes to harmful policies impacting pregnant people in the North at a local, territorial and federal level.
Since becoming director of NBC in October 2020, Sabrina has developed a strong understanding of the charitable sector, trust-based funding, and the barriers that exist for doulas, especially BIPGM doulas, to access financial compensation to do meaningful work in their community.
Anna Balagtas (she/they)
Anna is a first generation queer Filipina settler on the ancestral lands of the Attawandaron/Chonnonton, the Anishinaabe, and Haudenosaunee peoples and the treaty lands and territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit (Guelph, ON).
Anna is a radical doula, reproductive justice advocate, educator, and communications creative with their practice rooted in queer decolonial carework and the prioritization of QTBIPGM wellness, equity, and abundance.
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In 2020, Anna founded Pocket Doula, a landing space for folks to learn more about reproductive justice and birthwork in the Canadian context. In 2021, they became the Executive Director of Cornerstone Birthwork Canada in which they develop training and curriculum focused on full spectrum birthwork. The training is called Capstone Canada. In Capstone, the modules are focused on radical and political carework i.e. supporting sex workers, undocumented folks and migrant rights, supporting incarcerated birthing people, etc.
In their work today, Anna is focused on community collaborations that disrupt and dismantle systems that no longer serve us and is finding ways to become co-conspirators with folks who want to move towards a path of liberation through reproductive justice and community organizing.Description text goes here
Tahia Ahmed (she/her)
Tahia is a first-generation Bengali-Muslim settler living on unceded lək̓ʷəŋən and WSÁNEĆ territories (Victoria, BC). She is a co-founder and member of the Nesting Doula Collective, a BIPGM initiative providing free full spectrum perinatal support to BIPGM communities across BC.
In addition to providing full spectrum support to perinatal clients as a Doula, Tahia is also a certified Childbirth Educator and Sexual Health Educator.
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Tahia is experienced in curriculum design and facilitation. She is one of the core instructor’s for Nesting Doula Collective’s BIPGM Doula Training and has trained 150+ doulas across Turtle Island. Tahia teaches sessions on radical care work and reproductive justice at SFU’s Leadership and Community Building Program and UBC’s Midwifery Program.
Tahia is committed to autonomous and grassroots infrastructure for birth work in racialized communities that works to undo the systemic harm and obstetric violence faced by marginalized communities. She believes that the way forward for culturally affirming, anti-oppressive, and trauma-informed birth work requires returning knowledge and power back to community expertise and tradition where birth ultimately belongs.
Jessica Johnson (she/her)
Jessica is a first-generation Jamaican-Canadian settler living on the territory of the Anishinaabe Algonquin Nation in Ottawa, Ontario.
She is a full spectrum doula and lactation educator, as well as, the co-founder and Program Coordinator of the Rooted & Resilient Doula Program that provides low to no cost doula support for Black parents in the Ottawa-Gatineau region.
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From 2019 to 2022, Jessica worked as a perinatal support worker with urban Inuit parents who were at-risk of involvement and currently involved with the child welfare system. Using a strengths-based needs-driven approach that builds on the individual and family strengths to help families work towards their goal of family preservation/reunification. In this role, she supported birthers and parents of infants traveling from Nunavut for medical services. Jessica currently works as a Public Educator and Trainer for a program that supports individuals experiencing postpartum depression and/or postpartum anxiety.
Jessica is experienced in curriculum development and group facilitation. She was one of the core teachers for Birth Advocacy Doula Training’s (BADT) first Canadian cohort of the Full Spectrum Doula course. In this role, she worked with her co-facilitator to review and update the core curriculum to make it relevant to the Canadian context. In addition to her role as a core teacher, Jessica developed content for a masterclass on perinatal mental health for the BADT’s Childbirth Educations course.