"It's a doula nest in here..."
Yesterday, Corina, Sarafina and I got together at Corina's art studio near the Brewery in JP. Wow- an amazing space that nested us in our doulaness for five hours of the day. We got together with the intention of catching up on our individual projects. Surrounded by three belly casts, painted leaves and a beautiful mobile, we discussed our spiritual callings and our birth work with enthusiasm and support. We doula each other through our professional and personal lives while being doulas to others- our connection is truly amazing.
So, what you MUST know about because it is so absolutely fantastic and AMAZING is Corina's proposal for her senior thesis at the Div School. It's focus is a community doula project within church communities. I will say no more and let excerpts of Corina's proposal do the explaining for itself:
Community Doula Project
Senior Seminar Proposal for Corina Pinkerton
What intellectual questions and theological commitments are driving my work?
How to improve pastoral care in mainline protestant (especially United Methodist) congregations to pregnant and birthing women?
How to design a forum in the church for women to celebrate positive birth experiences and heal from birth-related trauma by drawing on biblical and theological resources?
How to enable congregations to develop a community doula program? i.e. an outreach ministry that trains congregants to support women throughout their pregnancy and accompany them during labor and the immediate post-partum period?
Project Description
The audience of this ministry project are pastors and lay leaders of local UMC or other congregations and the potential beneficiaries of the ministry are three fold: 1) interested women within the congregation, 2) pregnant women in the community, and 3) babies of the women who participate.
The community doula project is comprised of two ministry forms. The first is a covenanted small group for women to process/heal from/celebrate their birth narratives. The leader of the small group needs to be well trained in counseling/pastoral care strategies in order to be able to appropriately respond to women recovering from traumatic births. In addition, the leader of the small group would introduce biblical passages as well as theological concepts for use in the general discussion. The hope is that through small group conversation and individual reflection, the ministry participants would craft a theological language for use in the broader congregation which honors the potentially sacred and creative dimensions of birth.
The second component of the ministry would be the development of a trained cadre of volunteer doulas which the church makes available for the broader community. The training process would be lead by birth professionals i.e. midwives or certified doulas which the church invites as a partner in the ministry. The congregation would then advertise the availability of volunteer doulas for all women in the community, regardless of member status or religious beliefs. In so doing the congregation would be providing a valuable social service because currently in the US doulas are employed primarily by families who can afford them (mainly white, middle to upper middle class couples) so a volunteer doula program would extend the benefits of doula care to families who otherwise would likely not enjoy them.
The goal of my senior seminar project is to produce a workbook and resource guide for pastors and/or lay leaders to use in developing this ministry in local congregations. I will include in the guide both an introductory statement describing the ministry opportunities related to pregnant and birthing women in our country as well as the concrete steps a pastor or lay leader could take to design a community doula ministry in their home parishes.
I do not envision the workbook as a complete curriculum. Rather, I assume that the lived experiences of women in the congregation are the primary resource on which the pastor/lay leader needs to draw in order to develop a community doula ministry. However I hope to provide enough information that the organizer of this project feels that it is feasible in their setting. By enabling interested churches to better minister to child-bearing women and their families I hope to support a current trend among protestant churches— that of honoring the presence of the Divine in everyday lived experiences.
Amazing, right? I can't even tell you the energy that is happening with Corina right now, and with us all! I don't think there is any stopping us!
I wanted to post some pics of Manny but I can't figure out how to do so in this instant...So, keep your eyes open for that to come...
~Gina
So, what you MUST know about because it is so absolutely fantastic and AMAZING is Corina's proposal for her senior thesis at the Div School. It's focus is a community doula project within church communities. I will say no more and let excerpts of Corina's proposal do the explaining for itself:
Community Doula Project
Senior Seminar Proposal for Corina Pinkerton
What intellectual questions and theological commitments are driving my work?
How to improve pastoral care in mainline protestant (especially United Methodist) congregations to pregnant and birthing women?
How to design a forum in the church for women to celebrate positive birth experiences and heal from birth-related trauma by drawing on biblical and theological resources?
How to enable congregations to develop a community doula program? i.e. an outreach ministry that trains congregants to support women throughout their pregnancy and accompany them during labor and the immediate post-partum period?
Project Description
The audience of this ministry project are pastors and lay leaders of local UMC or other congregations and the potential beneficiaries of the ministry are three fold: 1) interested women within the congregation, 2) pregnant women in the community, and 3) babies of the women who participate.
The community doula project is comprised of two ministry forms. The first is a covenanted small group for women to process/heal from/celebrate their birth narratives. The leader of the small group needs to be well trained in counseling/pastoral care strategies in order to be able to appropriately respond to women recovering from traumatic births. In addition, the leader of the small group would introduce biblical passages as well as theological concepts for use in the general discussion. The hope is that through small group conversation and individual reflection, the ministry participants would craft a theological language for use in the broader congregation which honors the potentially sacred and creative dimensions of birth.
The second component of the ministry would be the development of a trained cadre of volunteer doulas which the church makes available for the broader community. The training process would be lead by birth professionals i.e. midwives or certified doulas which the church invites as a partner in the ministry. The congregation would then advertise the availability of volunteer doulas for all women in the community, regardless of member status or religious beliefs. In so doing the congregation would be providing a valuable social service because currently in the US doulas are employed primarily by families who can afford them (mainly white, middle to upper middle class couples) so a volunteer doula program would extend the benefits of doula care to families who otherwise would likely not enjoy them.
The goal of my senior seminar project is to produce a workbook and resource guide for pastors and/or lay leaders to use in developing this ministry in local congregations. I will include in the guide both an introductory statement describing the ministry opportunities related to pregnant and birthing women in our country as well as the concrete steps a pastor or lay leader could take to design a community doula ministry in their home parishes.
I do not envision the workbook as a complete curriculum. Rather, I assume that the lived experiences of women in the congregation are the primary resource on which the pastor/lay leader needs to draw in order to develop a community doula ministry. However I hope to provide enough information that the organizer of this project feels that it is feasible in their setting. By enabling interested churches to better minister to child-bearing women and their families I hope to support a current trend among protestant churches— that of honoring the presence of the Divine in everyday lived experiences.
Amazing, right? I can't even tell you the energy that is happening with Corina right now, and with us all! I don't think there is any stopping us!
I wanted to post some pics of Manny but I can't figure out how to do so in this instant...So, keep your eyes open for that to come...
~Gina
posted by Gina Forbes at 1:16 PM
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