You Belong Here
Understand yourself
Notice what you bring into the room—and how it can shape the support you offer.
For Birth Workers
Mind-Body, Birth:
Support Intensive
Deeper support for your birthers.
More support for yourself.
You already know how to support a birth.
This intensive changes how you understand the person experiencing it—and what happens between the two of you.
Birth doesn't happen to a blank slate. Your clients bring their histories, identities, relationships, expectations, fears, bodies, beliefs, and previous experiences into the room.
And you bring yourself, too.
Don't let your client interactions keep you up at night. Know you were the doula they needed.
Mind-Body, Birth: Support Intensive helps you understand what's happening beneath the immediate question, decision, or difficult moment—so you can support the whole person without losing yourself in the process.
Enrollment is open
Choose the $495 Support Intensive or the $1,295 Guided Experience.
Both experiences include the complete self-paced training, one required live group integration session, 6 DONA continuing education contact hours, and an integrated implicit bias component with a graded quiz and separate $75-value Implicit Bias Training Certificate at no additional cost.
Qualified Michigan Medicaid-enrolled doulas may be eligible for up to $1,500 in Michigan Doula RISE reimbursement.
Pay in full when you enroll, or reserve your place with a card on file and make no payment until February 1, 2027.
Not a foundational doula training. No particular certification or certifying organization required.
There Is Always More to the Story
Good support isn't just about knowing what to do.
A client gets quiet.
They change their mind about something they seemed certain about.
They make a choice you wouldn't make.
They tell you something you weren't expecting.
They say they're fine—but something about the moment doesn't feel fine.
What you're seeing is only part of what's happening.
Every interaction is shaped by more than the immediate situation. There are nervous systems in the room. Histories. Relationships. Identities. Power. Expectations. Biases. Previous experiences. Things that have been said—and things that haven't.
And that doesn't only apply to your client.
You are part of the interaction, too.
Your experiences, assumptions, nervous system, values, discomfort, and desire to help can shape what you notice, what you ask, when you step in, and when you step back.
The goal isn't to become perfectly objective or always know the right thing to say.
It's to understand yourself, understand the person in front of you, and understand what happens between the two of you—so you can offer support that actually fits the person receiving it.
The Support Intensive
Support the whole person by understanding what shapes the moment.
The Mind-Body, Birth: Support Intensive moves through four layers of support.
Understand the person in front of you
Look beyond what you can see without assuming you already understand what's underneath it.
Understand what happens between the two of you
Explore the trust, communication, power, boundaries, and human responses that shape a support relationship.
Learn how to support the whole person
Bring all of that understanding into the complicated, vulnerable, unpredictable moments of real support.
And when you aren't sure what the moment needs, you don't need a script.
You need a way to find your bearings.
HHold space
IInvestigate, don't assume
KKeep the client centered
EEngage—or ease back
What You'll Explore
The complicated parts of support are still part of support.
Psychology + nervous systems
Understand more of what can be happening beneath fear, silence, overwhelm, disconnection, or a sudden change in response—and how to stay present without immediately trying to make it go away.
Identity + lived experience
Explore how culture, identity, history, relationships, trauma, expectations, and previous experiences can shape what someone needs from support—without assuming that knowing something about a person means knowing them.
Sexuality + the body
Get more comfortable with the reality that birth involves bodies, vulnerability, intimacy, boundaries, exposure, pleasure, discomfort, and sexuality—and learn to support those realities without making them weird or pretending they aren't there.
Communication + trust
Recognize the difference between telling someone they can tell you anything and creating the conditions where they actually might.
Autonomy + decision-making
Practice offering information, asking questions, supporting advocacy, and staying with clients through choices—including choices you wouldn't make yourself—without quietly taking over.
You + the support relationship
Notice your own assumptions, nervous-system responses, biases, boundaries, instincts, and desire to help so that your humanity can inform your support without becoming something your client has to manage.
You don't become less human in order to become a better birth worker.
You become more aware of your own humanity—and more capable of making room for someone else's.
Is This for Me?
You know how to support birth. Learn how to support the whole birther.
The Mind-Body, Birth: Support Intensive is designed for doulas and other birth workers who want to understand more of what happens around, underneath, and between the practical skills of birth support.
You might take the Intensive after a foundational doula training.
You might take it alongside one.
You might have been doing this work for years and realize there are parts of support you want to understand differently.
Or you might be entering birth work with experience from another field—social work, education, nursing, bodywork, lactation, reproductive health, advocacy, Yoga, or something else entirely.
There isn't a prerequisite certification or a particular point in your career when you're finally “ready” for this work.
What matters is that you want to become more thoughtful about how you show up with people.
Inside the Intensive
Learn it. Practice it. Come back to it.
The Support Intensive isn't designed to give you a pile of information to consume once.
You'll move through the material, apply it to realistic support situations, reflect on your own responses, and practice using what you're learning before you need it in the birth room.
The complete Mind-Body, Birth: Support Intensive
Explore the psychology, relationships, identities, bodies, communication, decisions, and human responses that shape birth support.
The HIKE Framework
A practical framework you can return to when you aren't sure what a moment needs: Hold space → Investigate, don't assume → Keep the client centered → Engage—or ease back.
Real-world application
Scenarios, reflection, and practice designed to help you move from understanding an idea to recognizing it in actual support.
Live integration + discussion
A space to work through the material with Dr. V, ask questions, explore complicated situations, and connect what you've learned to your own work.
Five years of access
Return to the course as your work changes and different parts of the material become relevant.
Why I Teach This
The hardest parts of support don't come with a script.
I didn't build this training because I think doulas need more rules.
I built it because the hardest parts of supporting another person are often the parts no checklist can prepare you for.
A client tells you something you weren't expecting. Someone makes a decision you don't understand. A conversation touches something in you. You notice yourself wanting to fix a feeling, fill a silence, say the right thing, or make a difficult moment go away.
Those moments are deeply human. And being good at support doesn't make you stop having human responses to them.
My own work has moved across psychology, social work, sexuality, birth, embodied practice, research, and education. Those fields gave me different ways of understanding the same question:
What actually happens when one human being tries to support another?
Psychology taught me to look beneath behavior.
Social work taught me to look beyond the individual—to relationships, environment, identity, systems, and power.
Sexuality education taught me how much can live underneath the things people struggle to say out loud.
Embodied practice taught me that what happens in a body matters just as much as what someone can explain with words.
And birth work keeps bringing all of it together.
The Support Intensive is where those ways of understanding people meet the reality of being in the room with them.
Not so you can analyze your clients.
Not so you can always know the right thing to do.
So you can notice more, assume less, and stay present with the whole person in front of you.
Dr. V · PhD Psychology · MSW · Sexual Health Educator · Doula · Researcher
TWO WAYS TO EXPERIENCE THE INTENSIVE
Choose the level of support that fits you.
Both experiences include the complete self-paced training, one required one-hour live group integration session, 6 DONA continuing education contact hours, and an integrated implicit bias component. Complete the graded quiz to receive a separate $75-value Implicit Bias Training Certificate at no additional cost.
SUPPORT INTENSIVE
Mind-Body, Birth: Support Intensive
$495
Deeper support for your birthers. More support for yourself.
Build a stronger whole-person foundation for the complicated, vulnerable, and unpredictable moments of birth support.
- The complete self-paced Support Intensive
- One required one-hour live group integration session
- 6 DONA continuing education contact hours
- Integrated implicit bias component, graded quiz, and separate certificate
- Five years of course access
Pay $495 in full, or make four payments of $123.75 beginning February 1, 2027.
Enroll in Support IntensiveGUIDED EXPERIENCE
Guided Experience
$1,295
Go beyond learning the concepts. Discover how they show up in your work.
Every doula brings their own experiences, assumptions, strengths, and challenges into the birth space. But recognizing how those things influence the support we provide isn't always easy.
The Guided Experience takes the Support Intensive a step further, offering individualized education, thoughtful feedback, and the opportunity to examine your own practice through a whole-person lens.
Your experience includes:
The Complete Support Intensive
Everything included in the Support Intensive, including 6 DONA continuing education contact hours, live virtual learning, and the integrated implicit bias component with a graded quiz and separate certificate.
Your Personal Client Experience Audit
What are your intake forms really asking? What assumptions might be hiding in your questions? Are you creating space for clients to tell you who they are, or unintentionally asking them to fit into a particular idea of what a birthing person should be?
Submit an intake form or other client-facing document for an individualized review by Dr. V. Before your private session, she'll examine your materials through a whole-person lens, identifying opportunities to make your language, questions, and approach more intentional, inclusive, and client-centered.
You'll then have the opportunity to explore those observations together, considering not just what you're asking clients, but what those questions communicate.
Two Hours of Private Guided Learning
Bring the questions, experiences, and challenging situations that don't always have easy answers.
Your private learning time can be used to explore the findings of your Client Experience Audit, work through difficult client interactions, examine assumptions, or deepen your understanding of course concepts.
These sessions are tailored to your experiences and the areas where you want to grow.
From Understanding to Application
The goal isn't to give you a script for every situation. It's to help you recognize what's happening in the moment, ask more intentional questions, and feel more confident in the support you provide.
Learn the skills and build the confidence to know you were the doula they needed.
Pay $1,295 in full, or make four payments of $323.75 beginning February 1, 2027.
Private guided sessions may be scheduled after your first tuition payment is processed—or immediately if you pay in full.
Choose Guided ExperienceCHOOSE ONE LIVE INTEGRATION SESSION
One complete one-hour live session is required.
Select the date that works for you:
WednesdayDecember 9, 20266:30–7:30 P.M. EST
SaturdayDecember 12, 202611:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M. EST
WednesdayJanuary 27, 20276:30–7:30 P.M. EST
SaturdayJanuary 30, 202711:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M. EST
Attendance at one complete live session is required to receive your Support Intensive certificate.
ENROLL NOW. PAY YOUR WAY.
Pay in full now—or begin February 1.
A valid card is required to enroll and reserve your place. Choose to pay in full at enrollment, or select an equal-total-price payment plan with the first payment processed February 1, 2027, and the final payment May 1, 2027.
Michigan MDHHS has confirmed that training may be completed before deferred payment begins.
MICHIGAN DOULA RISE REIMBURSEMENT
Eligible for reimbursement up to $1,500.
Qualified Michigan Medicaid-enrolled doulas may be eligible for up to $1,500 in Michigan Doula RISE reimbursement.
For the Guided Experience, the Client Experience Audit, both private guided learning hours, and full tuition payment must be completed before applying for reimbursement.
INCLUDED WITH BOTH OPTIONS
An integrated component—with a separate certificate.
Implicit bias is addressed within the Mind-Body, Birth: Support Intensive as part of the complete learning experience.
Complete the implicit bias component and graded quiz to receive a separate Implicit Bias Training Certificate of Completion.
$75 value · Included at no additional cost
To receive your separate certificate:
01
Complete the implicit bias component within the Support Intensive.
02
Complete the graded quiz.
03
Receive your separate Implicit Bias Training Certificate of Completion.
For Michigan doulas
Once the component and graded quiz are complete, this certificate may be used to meet the annual implicit bias training requirement for the Michigan MDHHS Doula Registry.
MDHHS has confirmed that the Doula Registry does not prescribe specific content, duration, format, or trainer qualifications. Doulas self-attest to completing implicit bias education aligned with their learning goals and available resources.
Please check your state's requirements if you plan to use this certificate outside Michigan.
Frequently Asked Questions
A few things you may be wondering.
Is this a foundational doula training?
No. The Support Intensive goes deeper into the relational, psychological, embodied, and human parts of support. It does not teach the complete foundational skills required to begin working as a doula or certify you as one.
Do I need to complete a foundational doula training first?
No. You can take the Support Intensive before, during, or after foundational doula education—or after years of working in birth support.
There is no required certification or certifying organization.
Is this only for doulas?
No. The Intensive is designed around birth support, but it can also be useful for other birth and reproductive-health workers whose roles involve supporting people through pregnancy, birth, feeding, postpartum, and related experiences.
Will I become a certified doula after completing it?
No. Completing the Support Intensive does not certify you as a doula.
Will I receive a certificate for the Support Intensive?
Yes. Complete the self-paced training and attend one complete live group integration session to receive your Support Intensive certificate documenting 6 DONA continuing education contact hours.
How long will I have access?
You'll have access to the Support Intensive for five years.
That gives you time to return to the material as your work evolves, revisit topics when they become relevant, and use the course as an ongoing professional resource.
How does the live component work?
Both options include one required one-hour live group integration session with Dr. V. Choose the session that works for you:
Wednesday, December 9, 2026 · 6:30–7:30 p.m. EST
Saturday, December 12, 2026 · 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. EST
Wednesday, January 27, 2027 · 6:30–7:30 p.m. EST
Saturday, January 30, 2027 · 11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. EST
You must attend one complete session to receive your Support Intensive certificate.
Is the Implicit Bias Training Certificate included?
Yes. The Support Intensive includes an integrated implicit bias component. Complete that component and the graded quiz to receive a separate Implicit Bias Training Certificate of Completion—a $75 value—at no additional cost.
For Michigan doulas, this certificate may be used to meet the annual implicit bias training requirement for the Michigan MDHHS Doula Registry. Please check your state's requirements if you plan to use it outside Michigan.
What are my payment options?
A valid card is required to enroll and reserve your place. You may pay in full when you enroll or choose an equal-total-price four-payment plan.
For deferred payment plans, the first payment is processed February 1, 2027, and the final payment is processed May 1, 2027. Michigan MDHHS has confirmed that training may be completed before deferred payment begins.
When can I schedule my Guided Experience sessions?
Your two private guided learning hours may be scheduled after your first tuition payment has been processed—or immediately if you pay in full.
The Client Experience Audit, both private guided learning hours, and full tuition payment must be completed before you apply for Doula RISE reimbursement.
Is this eligible for Michigan Doula RISE reimbursement?
Qualified Michigan Medicaid-enrolled doulas may be eligible for up to $1,500 in Michigan Doula RISE reimbursement.
Reimbursement eligibility and approval are determined by the Michigan Doula RISE program. Complete all requirements for your selected option and pay tuition in full before applying.
What if I've been a doula for years?
You're welcome here.
This isn't designed around how many births you've attended or how long you've held a certification.
The work is about what happens when humans support humans—and there is always more to notice.
Stay Human
Your clients don't need another person to perform for.
They don't need you to have the perfect response.
They don't need you to know their whole story before they tell it.
And they don't need you to become less human in order to support them.
They need room to be human, too.
Complicated. Changing. Certain one moment and unsure the next. Quiet. Angry. Afraid. Joyful. Disappointed. Embodied. Messy. Whole.
The work isn't to become the person who always knows exactly what to do.
It's to notice more. Assume less. Stay curious. And keep the person in front of you at the center of their own experience.
Choose your experience.
Begin with the complete Support Intensive—or add individualized education, your Client Experience Audit, and two private guided learning hours.
Support Intensive — $495 Guided Experience — $1,295
Pay in full when you enroll, or choose four equal payments beginning February 1, 2027.
