We've been invited to facilitate a four-day doula training next month with currently incarcerated community members at our local jail, where we, Roots of Labor Birth Collective, have provided comprehensive full-spectrum doula support since 2014.

Access like this is rare and unpredictable.

Participants are eager to gain tools to support others experiencing pregnancy, loss, and parenting in custody, and for a pathway to meaningful work after release. This training turns lived experience into leadership, peer support, and paid community care work.

We will train 16-25 participants in our trauma-informed, harm reductionist, full-spectrum perinatal support curriculum, connect them to mentorship through our doula collective, and a pathway into Medi-Cal reimbursable doula work after release.

This is not charity. This is community safety infrastructure.

Research and our lived experience are clear - stable employment and social support offer an opportunity for community to grow, repair, and restore together, and we believe care work is one of the most impactful ways to foster both.

We are raising funds to compensate facilitators, provide materials, and run this pilot cohort during a confirmed access window from March 6th - 9th.

We have reached out to institutions, but they move slowly, so we're reaching out to the community to help us get started. Your backing may well unlock further investment to continue this good work.

If you believe that care should exist in every space that our community members are in, including inside, we invite you to help make this training happen. Please give what you can, and help us get the word out by sharing this with people you know!

About Us

Roots of Labor Birth Collective is based on unceded Lisjan and Karkin Ohlone lands, currently known as Oakland, CA. We are a collective of Black, Indigenous, Queer, Trans, People of the Global Majority full-spectrum doulas, traditional birth workers, healers, and care advocates supporting folks whose lived experiences we reflect. We believe that everyone deserves a doula, and we all deserve to thrive.

Our collective offers full-spectrum perinatal doula support to systems-impacted community members inside and outside, as well as twice-monthly peer BIPGM birth workers + healers support circles, Medi-Cal Doula Enrollment Coaching, full-spectrum doula trainings, advocacy, and collaborates with the community in the perinatal justice space. Our vision is liberation of all peoples from cycles which result in reproductive injustice, and vitality for our community care workers, healers, and ancestral medicine carriers.

RLBC is committed to reproductive and disability justice, offering compassionate physical, emotional, and informational perinatal support that centers our most vulnerable and impacted community members through a trauma-responsive and harm reductionist lens.

When you choose to hire an RLBC doula, your decision to work with us provides quality doula care to all birthing people, including those who are incarcerated, immigrants (regardless of their documentation status), survivors, folks with low income, trans*, queer, and/or people with disabilities.