Mission
BirthWell Partners is a community based not-for-profit corporation serving women of all economic levels in the greater Birmingham area. BirthWell Partners’ mission is to provide high quality, evidence based information and support for pregnancy, birth and parenting, as well as a training pathway for women seeking to enter the doula profession, regardless of ability to pay.
How it works:
We recruit women from the Birmingham community who want to be doulas but can’t afford the cost of training. We provide them with a scholarship to cover the cost of attaining a Doulas of North America (DONA) Birth Doula certification.
As part of the certification process, trainees need to attend 3 documented births. For many doulas, this means actually attending more than three births, just because of the unpredictable nature birth.
But we help! In return for their scholarships, our trainees volunteer to attend 5 births with women and teens that we have identified who cannot afford to pay for the care of a doula.
So, each doula completing our program will become a DONA certified birth doula. She will attain a marketable skill enabling her to earn income by providing doula services.
So it’s a win-win proposition.
Doulas are trained in a marketable skill and at risk mothers get the known benefits of doula support.
To paraphrase a well known proverb:
Give a woman a fish, she can feed her family for a day… Teach a woman to fish, she can feed her family for a lifetime!
