Community-based birth doula continues with home visiting through the first 3 months of the baby’s life, serving as a guide for initial breastfeeding and safe baby care practices and providing mental health and nutrition support resources and referrals as needed.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities include the following. Other duties may be assigned.

• Provide emotional, physical, and informational support to birth parents and their families.
• Prenatal education – through home visits, doulas provide prenatal and birth preparation in conjunction with group prenatal education provided by the midwife.
• Does prenatal and postpartum home visits, with each expectant parent.
• Phone support, as needed, beginning at enrollment in the program through the fourth month of postpartum.
• Refers to CHASS Southwest Behavioral Health services, as well as outside agencies, when necessary.
• Continual presence for emotional, physical and informational support during the active phase of labor and a supportive presence during and immediately following the birth of the baby, ideally assisting with the newborn’s first feeding.
• Documentation of each stage of the service package via a secure patient database (EPIC).
• Maintains patient confidentiality in accordance with HIPAA regulations.
• Collaborates with members of the health care team and other health professionals as it relates to essential job duties.

Performance Requirements:
Knowledge: Doulas will be able to coach and provide opportunities for clients to advocate for themselves, to share evidence-based information about pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, and parenting, one-on-one with birth parents and their families. Doulas will remain organized with work responsibilities including documentation processes and keeping appointments with clients and supervisors. Doulas will need to communicate effectively with clients and supervisors via phone, text/Teams, and emails and document their work using Microsoft Word, email, and an online database program – EPIC.

Abilities: Doulas should be connected to the community, especially having shared experiences with community members. Doulas are caring, compassionate, honest, friendly, outgoing, respectful, open-minded, non-judgmental, committed, and dedicated to working with pregnant people, babies, and their families. Doulas can remain patient and calm during highly emotional or stressful situations and are capable of self-directed work.

Specific Requirements and Certifications:

• Training and certification as a birth doula provided by CHASS Center.
• Bilingual Spanish/English, with mature communication skills, including good English writing skills and great Spanish and English verbal skills.
• Availability to support birthing parents in labor whenever labor occurs daytime, nighttime, weekends, and holidays – according to a pre-determined on-call schedule.
• Ability to leave family or other work responsibilities within 1 hour to be with the client beginning in active labor and staying with the client until after they give birth and the baby feeds for the first time.
• Has reliable transportation (with a valid driver’s license and current insurance).
• Ability to drive to and from the hospital promptly whenever their clients are in active labor.