As doulas, at some point in our career we are bound to have a client open up to us and disclose an abusive or traumatic experience--Do you know how to respond? Do you know what to do with that information? Do you know how she may react in labour if she's been a victim of childhood sexual abuse?

Before this weekend I didn't know the answers to any of those questions. Now I do. I feel a hundred times more comfortable and confident with my role as a doula. I feel empowered with this knowledge and strongly feel that ALL doulas should attend this training.

Jodi delivers a powerful and dynamic workshop on supporting women surviviors of abuse through the childbearing year in a manner that is sensitive, compassionate, and true. The material is eye-opening, and the format of the workshop has a great flow where the learning objectives are covered at just the right pace for the group.

Although the first day is very heavy with facts and can be emotionally taxing for some, Jodi stops periodically to check in to see how everyone is feeling and what kind of responses they may have. The pace is kept up, there is group work, small group work, and partner exercises to use the skills learned on the second day. Jodi is articulate and the work she does is courageous. I felt very empowered by the information and skills she gave us.

How many of us think of our own safety when entering a clients' home? Did it ever occur to you that the woman may have an abusive partner, and that abuse JUST started DURING pregnancy? It makes so much sense to me that this information should be covered in depth at a standard doula training, but that is pretty impossible when a doula training is 2 or 3 days. This training alone needs 2 days for itself.

The time, effort, and money for this advanced practitioner training are well spent. Especially if it could potentially save the life of a client (you never know?), or her from further abuse, or even if it's just to understand how to better support her during her labour, birth and postpartum. You could also save yourself from becoming involved in a dangerous situation. I highly recommend Jodi's A Safe Passage training. Please see her website for more information, to see if there is a training near you, or to sponsor a training! www.asafepassage.info

Thank you, Jodi, for this wonderful new set of skills I proudly own!

I would second everything Tiffany said!

I have taken a lot of trainings and I would put this one near the very top of my list in terms of relevance and impact! I think it is ESSENTIAL doula training and I know that I was missing a big piece of the puzzle before I took her workshop. I have had many clients disclose abuse to me, I had inadvertently enabled an abuser to isolate his partner from her family and I had often put myself in incredibly unsafe situations while also compromising not only my safety but that of my family's. All of this coming from a woman who had been active in the women's community, has a minor in Women's Studies and had worked in Crisis counselling - I had forgotten what I knew. I forgot to apply it in the context of birth and postpartum.
I now know better how to handle all of these situations.

This workshop does not make us experts in this area, or ask us to take on the role of being a counsellor. What it does is gives us the basic tools to create opportunties for our clients to disclose important information that may impact their pregnancy, birth and postpartum period, to refer them to appropriate resources and to create safety plans for ourselves so that we can stay safe and take care of our own emotional health while working with survivors and the everyday trauma we witness as doulas.

It has been said before but if we are working with women we are working with survivors. It is vital that we recognize this and acqure the basic skills to recognize the signs, impacts and resources available to us.

I loved this workshop and would absolutely recommend it to all! Jodi is amazing and is a gift to our community - we just need to take advantage of what it is she offering and I personally thank her for not just an amazing workshop but for the important work she is doing for women.