Doula Training & Certification Options
Find the Right Path for Your Doula Education Needs
Our goal is to provide you with a doula training and certification experience that is personal, meaningful, and achievable. Our evidence-based, trauma-informed courses are built around modern, culturally adaptable practices designed for doulas to adjust as needed for their communities. We offer three certification options so anyone interested in the doula practice can find the education pathway that’s right for them.
We’ve developed course bundles to help you on your training and certification journey! Select all your classes at once to get started!
Birth Doula Training
Comprehensive Three-Day Workshop
This interactive, in-person workshop is designed to help participants become expert labor support providers. This workshop utilizes texts, your 300+ page reference manual, videos, slides, games, activities, and role play to build theoretical knowledge and practical skills. It is one step in the process of certifying as a birth doula. Participants who complete the Birth Doula Training will receive a training certificate, noting successful completion of the program that may be used to demonstrate experience and credentials.
Birth Doula Certification
Comprehensive, Self-Paced Doula Certification Training with Hands-On Fieldwork
This certification program includes three essential components including the provision of labor support, affirmation of Doula skills, and reflective practice. During this long-form course, participants will complete our DTD Childbirth Course, DTD Postpartum Course, and our three-day intensive Birth Doula Training Workshop, while completing hands-on fieldwork with birthing parents and their communities. Fieldwork includes attending an infant feeding class, attending a minimum of six births where participants provide labor support, complete reflection work, receive observation by a DTD certified Doula, and review and analyze six key educational texts. Once doula students complete this training they can add official certified birth doula to their credentials, receive free listing in our doula directory for one year, and get an ID badge and lanyard for secure identification.
Enhance your certification experience by selecting a birth doula bundle, which includes social learning and mentored group support!
Postpartum Doula Training & Certification
Supporting Newborn Parents After Birth
In this comprehensive examination of the first year postpartum, we begin with a broad view of what’s happening during this time period. Postpartum occurs whenever a pregnancy ends, so that inclusive theme runs throughout the course. We start with some helpful models to create a map for the material that we’re going to cover in the different chapters of the course. At the end of the course, we revisit those models to see how much you’ve absorbed about that first year. In detail we examine physical changes; typical psychological recovery; atypical recoveries; the importance of grief in order to complete the adjustment to parenthood; discovering the new baby including infant state, cues, temperament, sleep, and crying; the postpartum journey for partners and supportive parents; intimate relationships including sexuality, body, and genital self-image; and best practices to support postpartum families. Learning activities, video interviews, and supportive quotations are sprinkled throughout the course. Learners in our certification programs are asked to create an art piece and send us a short video about their project upon completion.
Build Your Doula Practice
With Our Foundations Coaching & Book Club
We offer a nine meeting “Foundations of Doula Practice” course, which helps you to focus on your target clients, set up your paperwork, decide on a media/marketing strategy, map your vision for your doula life, cover support skills for managing loss and grief, find new ways to optimize relationships with medical providers, and more. Foundations meets nine times, typically every two to three weeks in a small group. You also receive a one-on-one session with your Foundations Coach, which you can take advantage of at any time during the series.
Every month we host a Birth Doula Book Club that focuses on one of six different topics relevant to doulas. There are different books preselected for each topic and you choose your book. Book Clubs are facilitated by an experienced Foundations Coach and are a fun social way to earn CE’s (one per session) or complete DTD’s Certification Reading List.
Doula Education Opportunities for All
We offer a wide variety of doula courses to meet the needs of all people. Whether you’re an aspiring doula, a professional doula, a medical professional, or simply a person looking to build your support skills for the birthing parent in your life, we’ve got educational materials to help you on your pathway. Explore our education pathways to learn more!
