Calling All Doulas! Curious About Working for Kearney’s New Doula Agency?
Being a part of The Childbirth Circle is more than being part of a team; we care for each other and we want to see our sister doulas succeed. We support and nurture our doulas to enable them to reach their full potential.
Do you have a doula’s heart?
Maybe you have a passion for childbirth and providing care for families, but you’re not sure where to start or worry that your life circumstances won’t be compatible. Maybe you’re a seasoned doula and you’re starting to feel like your job might not be sustainable long-term. Maybe you’re a former doula considering a return to birth work, but you got worn down and burnt out by the demands of your career and you’re nervous about what the future will hold.
Being an independent doula can be challenging, and many doulas burn out after only a few years. There are many reasons for this including long hours at births, extended periods of on-call time, unpaid or underpaid labor, toxic work environments or hostile hospital staff, and traumatizing experiences. Working with an agency can help ease some of these issues and alleviate some of the burden.
Who We Are
The Childbirth Circle is Kearney’s first and only doula agency. We use a team-based approach to providing support for our clients. Being a part of The Childbirth Circle is more than being part of a team; we care for each other and we want to see our sister doulas succeed. We support and nurture our doulas to enable them to reach their full potential. The world is a better place with doulas in it, and it’s even better when we all work together!
But what is it like working with an agency? At The Childbirth Circle, you’ll have access to resources, support, backups, training, and more! Let’s explore some of those perks.
Freeing Doulas to be Doulas
Running a business can be a very big job. It can be very expensive and time-consuming. Thankfully, doula agencies handle all the administrative tasks of running a business. With The Childbirth Circle, you won’t have to worry about advertising, hosting events, finding and following up with potential clients, sending invoices, or handling forms and contracts. Your responsibilities will simply be to show up and be a doula. We’ll take care of the rest!
Built-in Backups and Teamwork
When working with a team of doulas, you have a guaranteed backup when needed! No longer do we have to worry about missing our child’s birthday because we were at birth. We don’t have to turn away clients because we’ll be out of town during part of their due time. Being sick or having an emergency won’t leave our clients in a lurch. And we don’t have to go through the trouble of finding another doula to provide backup support. It’s already built-in! If you have a client due but you need to be off-call for an hour, a day, a week, or more – your backup will have your back.
Additionally, some births take longer than others. It’s uncommon, but a family may need support for 24 hours or more. That’s exhausting for one doula to do alone! With a team of doulas, however, you can have another doula provide backup while you take a break for food, sleep, and self-care. You’ll rest assured knowing that your backup is already familiar with your client’s birth plan and preferences. Your client will be in great hands, receiving high-quality care from another fantastic doula.
Another great benefit of working with a doula team is that we have a broad variety of skill sets to better serve our community. Your clients may want additional support that is outside your area of expertise. They may find themselves in need of lactation support or postpartum services, and in those cases, you’ll be able to refer them to another team member. We never want our doulas to feel like they are stretched too thin, or that they have to be the end-all-be-all for our clients. We are continually adding new services so we’ll have even more to offer!
Nurturing Success
The Childbirth Circle believes in the importance of continuing education, keeping our skills sharp, and building new skills. To set our doulas up for success, we provide compensation for any training you may want to take. So if you’re a new doula, you don’t have to worry about whether you can afford your training. If you’re already trained but want to expand your skills and knowledge, complete new certifications, or offer new services, that training is covered too! We want to employ a well-rounded team with a wide range of experience and expertise.
Another driving factor behind doula burnout is that the pay can be fairly low compared to the hours and effort put in. Doulas also sometimes work for free and provide unpaid services, perhaps through a sense of obligation or sometimes after making an informal agreement that fell through. We believe doulas deserve to be paid fairly for their time and labor, so we offer competitive pay, and – it should go without saying – we never expect our doulas to provide unpaid labor. We have safeguards in place to ensure our doulas get paid fairly for their work.
A Network of Support
We at The Childbirth Circle don’t believe in gatekeeping knowledge. We want other doulas to succeed and we are excited to share our experiences and wisdom with our sister doulas. When you have a question, you’ll be happy to know you can reach out to your doula teammates for advice and information.
Doulas provide emotional support for other doulas, too. After attending a birth, it’s sometimes helpful to have another doula to decompress with afterward, especially if things didn’t go as intended or if the birth was especially challenging. It can also be very beneficial for a new doula to have more experienced doulas to bounce things off of. To make this kind of care more accessible, we meet weekly in our office to discuss our work. We also have an ongoing group chat that allows us to have regular contact and to ask urgent questions.
A common concern that newer doulas sometimes have is that they won’t be accepted by medical staff, or that they’ll be met with hostility in the hospital. Worry not! Kearney is home to two outstanding hospitals and a multitude of excellent care providers. We also attend births in North Platte, Hastings, Grand Island, Gothenburg, and Lexington. In our experience, these hospitals and their dedicated staff are very welcoming and excited to work with us! We have never encountered any adversarial or unpleasant working situations. However, in the unlikely event that the need should arise, The Childbirth Circle is fully committed to advocating for our doulas and clients. We believe in the importance of creating a supportive and empowering environment for our team, and you can trust that we will be there to stand by you as we navigate this journey together.
Building a Strong Doula Community
We know that some doulas are perfectly fine working by themselves! We still think it’s important to build community with birth workers outside our agency. The Childbirth Circle hosts gatherings several times a year for doulas, childbirth educators, and other birth professionals in our area. It’s also open to anyone thinking about entering birth work. Often we meet to share a meal potluck-style and have fantastic conversations about birth. Sometimes we watch a birth-related movie or share new skills we’ve learned. We also have a private Facebook group for this community to ask questions and share information.
Doulas are a great resource for a community to have. We have a lot to offer, not just to birthing families, but also to the doulas who work with us! The Childbirth Circle exists to uplift and support doulas to reach their fullest potential and secure a strong doula presence in Central Nebraska. Kearney’s need for doulas is growing every day, and we’ll need more doulas to meet that need as we continue to gain momentum. We are always looking to add more doulas and birth professionals to our team, and eventually, we hope to have offices in other parts of Nebraska. If you have a passion for serving birthing families, please reach out to us! We’ll be thrilled to hear from you!
