Keisha is from the Katzie First Nation and Blackburn, Lancashire, England.
I have been learning and working as a doula in Vancouver’s urban Indigenous community since 2011 when I was trained through the Douglas College DONA program. In August 2016, shortly after co-founding our doula collective, I graduated from the Native Youth Sexual Health Network‘s Full Spectrum Indigenous Doula training in tkaronto/gichi kiiwenging (Toronto, Ontario).
I am a Student Midwife and will be entering my second year in the UBC Bachelor of Midwifery program in Fall 2018. In addition to birth work, I am a Consultant with First Nations communities and organizations in BC. As a Consultant, I carry experience in the areas of program evaluation, curriculum development, strategic planning, and strengths-based research. Some of the clients I have worked with include Aboriginal, non-profit, and public sector organizations, offering services in the areas of housing, youth and child care, education, addictions treatment, anti-violence work, and health care. I have also spent many years working with plants, both in my own community and professionally, most recently as the xʷc̓ic̓əsəm Garden Coordinator. To me, birth work and land/water-based work is inherently interconnected and I am always learning new teachings about creation and birth through my time working with the plants.
Birth work has always been a sacred role in my family. Aunties/helpers/doulas/birth workers carry the teachings about how to lift up mothers/pregnant people/families and support the ceremony of bringing new life into this world. My great-grandmother, family and ancestors have been incredible role models and teachers to me and I hope to continue their legacies the best that I can.
I practice with an anti-oppression and trauma-informed approach to support pregnancy, labour/birth, the postpartum period and across the spectrum of pregnancy outcomes. I am grateful to learn, listen, witness, connect and support while bringing my understandings of traditional healing practices, ceremony, plant knowledge, and empathy to my work as a doula in order to create a safe and empowering space for families to write their birth stories in ways that are most meaningful to them.
ekw’í7tl 