Professionals Workshops
Stillbirthday offers two workshop sessions for professionals!
Session One “Sensitivity Training” articulates in a rich way the importance and application of the emotional foundation of serving as a doula entering into the spaces where birth & bereavement meet. This is a healing and engaging session of authentic exploration.
Session Two “Building a Strong Skill Set” draws specific attention to the 6 stages of labor, 5 seasons of the journey, and 4 “tasks” of the birth & bereavement doula. This session builds on session one and offers tangible opportunities of keepsake making and ritual.
Each workshop can run approximately 4-5 hours, and both workshops are highly recommended for professionals engaged in birth and/or bereavement support.
Click below for our promotional material outlining both of our Birth Professional workshop sessions!
Click here to go back to our main workshops page.
Session One:
This is our one day introductory workshop for birth workers to become affluent in being present in supporting families experiencing pregnancy and infant loss.
Subjects we will explore:
- Definitions and interpretations of life.
- Definitions and interpretations of death.
- Definitions and interpretations of grief.
- How to integrate these systems of belief to holistically support families.
What you will gain:
As a birth professional, attending a healing session for mothers may otherwise seem inappropriate to you. Here, you can explore the awesome power of presence, validation and support in the first person, in a trusting environment that is uniquely prepared and created especially for us birth professionals. Here we’ll explore what it means to support families giving birth in any trimester, including supporting in subsequent pregnancies and “red flags of grief” that might otherwise be overlooked, including bonding issues in pregnancy, dystocia in labor and attachment issues postpartum.
You will identify similarities and differences in loss to other traumas a family may experience, you’ll strengthen your understanding of the connections between events in a mother’s obstetrical history, you’ll learn the importance of being supported yourself, and you’ll see how your trust in your own support network will impact your response to your client. You’ll begin to build a strong foundation of support for yourself that you need to be the best you can be, for your clients, and for yourself. You will spend time in reflection, evaluating your own values and interpretations of life and death. Workshops are an intimate gathering intended to enrich and inspire.
More than just a checklist of things to make sure you do or say for bereaved families, the workshop environment will slow you, deepen you, and connect you with the families you serve in a profound way. The workshop is a safe environment. Please open yourself to being gently challenged.
Using demonstrations, examples, projects and discussion, you will leave with tools you need to be better prepared in all birth situations.
Having between 20 to 40 registrants is recommended to make a vibrant and wonderful workshop.
You’ll also receive handouts that will cover what we won’t have enough time to during the workshop, including information on practical support and supplies that can benefit bereaved families, including keepsake building. Often birth professionals seek a “check list” of things to do and say for families. It is because families do benefit from these things but need someone who is engaged with them in their experience, that it is highly recommended that birth professionals attend this workshop and/or take our online training. This is a one day workshop for birth workers to learn how to provide compassionate, comprehensive support to families, including why and how to establish strong support resources for yourself.
If you are an aspiring doula, birth doula, postpartum doula, monitrice, midwife or nurse, this workshop is right for you.
Visit Heidi Faith’s professional page on Facebook for even more photos.
Session Two:
If you’ve already attended session one, or if what you’re seeking is a much more intentional time specifically in things like role-playing, environment setting and actual how-to in regard to serving, these are given much more attention in our second session. While some of these examples are incorporated into the first session, this session is a full day of scenarios and actual practice in the experiences.
This session is most vibrant with 10 – 15 attendees.
Attendees practice handling and care of Sam, a medically accurate, realistic 25 week neonate manikin, and a series of gestational aged dolls named Miriam. At the introduction of these dolls, you may practice any aspect you’d like to learn more about: seeing, holding, bathing, dressing, all while we’ll be working on a full day of preparing our own hearts for entering into such a sacred encounter as when birth & bereavement meet.
Subjects we will explore:
- Providing support prior to loss.
- Providing support during the actual physical event of loss.
- How to be supported.
- How to support after a loss.
What you will gain:
This is a hands on, interactive and informal workshop. Using demonstrations, examples, projects and discussion, you will leave with tools you need to be better prepared in all birth situations. We will spend the entire day engaged in activities that offer tangible application and we have the time to open our minds into the endless variables, circumstances or situations we may be presented with as we support families. Scenarios: Searching for and caring for the physical form of a baby born in the first trimester, when flushing is inevitable, when you witness live miscarriage, when dad is angry, when surviving children are present, when you witness an unexpected home stillbirth, when you witness an unexpected hospital stillbirth, when baby is transported, when baby is in NICU, when it’s a multiples birth and one or more babies are not alive, when parents want what seem to be unconventional options, when a birth plan or a death plan don’t manifest as the parents hoped, when special others disrupt the birth environment, and more. This is your opportunity to witness and be a part of such situations before you witness them with your clients. Validating language, tangible support, experienced training. These things and more are what you’ll gain from this workshop. We will practice labor support when there is a known or a sudden change of outcome.
We’ll explore the 6 stages of labor and the 5 seasons of the healing journey. We’ll learn the 4 “tasks” of a birth & bereavement doula.
With the help of Sam, our medically accurate mannequin baby, and the creativity of your workshop guide, we’ll practice touching, holding and bathing a baby born not alive. We’ll practice gathering keepsakes and creating rituals, and drawing from our Level 1 workshop, begin to see the application of really “going deep” in supporting families who meet with both birth & bereavement.
More than 10 medically accurate dolls may be brought to the workshops. About the other dolls that may be present: Aged at 8, 10, 12, 16, 22, 25, 30 and 40 weeks gestation, we’ll have more than 10 dolls, some for holding and bathing. Sam is the best model for bathing and dressing. We can practice any scenarios your host wants to focus on, including birth in the first trimester, diagnoses, temperature, laws, and much more.
Because the realms of birth and of bereavement are each vast and together enormous, all attendees enter the workshop with at least one question written onto paper that is explored in the session, and there is a Q&A session at the close of the workshop. In this way, each workshop has its own unique course based on the needs of the attendees.
Each attendee will receive a Supporting Birth & Bereavement as a Doula guidebook, which contains the most viewed pages of the website stillbirthday, and which contain many practical insights including instructions on bathing a baby not alive, as well as information on the history of the doula, poignant articles published on our early website, and space for notes from the workshop.
Let’s get started!
Just visit the workshops main page, or use the speaking engagements form to share your ideas and get our workshop planning! If all of this sounds wonderful but logistical factors such as finances and travel are limiting, our Virtual Workshops for Professionals might be right for you!
.
Feedback from Workshop Attendees
Heidi shares her experience and heart and most of all, spirit. We ALL loved her spirit. We all wanted to “put a Heidi in our pocket” when we left. She was amazing. Cleansing, washing, soaking up and sharing, all symbolic to many things – too many to name at once! Who are we? What do we bring to births, to women’s experience in still birth or loss? Have mercy on yourself. Get in HER space. Leave your stuff at the door. We paired up, shared with a friend, our deepest hurts, loss and trials – by stating it on our little window. We started healing from this one little exercise. Wonderful. So many women who are strong and courageous and bring so much love and tender care to hurting mamas. What an honor to spend time with them. Heidi is a beautiful light in the darkness. It was such an honor to hold little Miriam for so long. I felt like I was holding her for all of the mamas out there who cannot hold their babies. We all are called to different work with mother’s – what is YOUR calling, how are you called? You are such a beautiful lady, Heidi, in heart, body and spirit! This was a wonderful workshop – THANK YOU to all women who came and shared and went “deep” Blessings to all of you! I hope in the future you can attend one of Heidi Faith’s workshops. She is a treasure.
Learn about our Invisible Pregnancy Mother Workshops!
.
