Youth Doula

FAQ

What is my practice?

Youth Doula work combines play, joy, and healing through an anti-ageist perspective. Many of us who experience trauma have to grow up too fast. We are forced into a world of adulthood “responsibility”, forgoing our need for care — as a youth doula I hope to repair this and help us attend to our age-trauma.

Age-trauma describes an experience specific to anti-child ageism when our autonomy, ability, articulation, emotions, opinions are constantly doubted, called into question or seen as ‘cute’.”

— Aiyana Goodfellow, Has Oppression Found A Home in You? A reflective introspection on age-trauma.

Age-trauma (also coined by me) is the result of growing up in an anti-child ageist society; often harm is inescapable particularly because we exist in the disempowered identity of ‘child’. Similar to racialised- or gendered-trauma, it refers to the personal impact of systemic oppression. My Youth Doula work recognises all systemic oppression as traumatic on some level and knowing our whole bodyminds are affected by this, I gravitate towards somatic support tools.

Who is it for?

I support young people 14+ through the transformative times of childhood such as navigating the school system; puberty, gender & sexuality; family struggles; internalised ageism; transitioning into adulthood, and more. I work not as a parent, teacher, therapist, or other “authority” figure, but as a peer.

I support adults connect to their childishness, which can be an essential component for healing the disconnection and fragmentation that trauma can leave us with. I can help you navigate difficult parental or familial relationships; building secure attachment; accessing play; tending to childhood wounds; contextualising experiences through oppression dynamics, and more.

I am also available to consult parents, teachers, youth workers, community groups, and families around raising and educating young people, the school system, adult privilege, and much more, from my perspective as a teenager. I can give advice around supporting queer & trans, disabled, neurodivergent, Black, or working class children to help you be in better solidarity with the young people you engage with.

What do I offer?

I offer personalised care plans to all my clients. Care plans are flexible from 4-8 weeks long, but can be renewed if you would like to extend our work together.

Your plan could include…

• weekly 1hr support sessions (which can include boundary setting, accountability mapping, emotional witnessing, etc.)
• resource sharing and signposting
• ongoing email support
• play dates – where we do something joyful and childish together (e.g., taking a trip to a waffle house, trampoline park, cooking together, art-making, etc.)
• additional tasks/activities for between sessions

Furthermore, I offer small group or 1:1 advice sessions to parents, caregivers, youth workers, community groups, and families. This can be done through a one-off or longer-term care plan.

You may want to focus on a specific experience/transition in your life, or multiple at the same time – all intentions are welcome!

What are my experiences?

I see the importance of both lived and learnt experiences. I use both to guide me as a Youth Doula!

My lived experience includes…

• (internalised) ageism age-trauma;
• ageism in activism spaces; 
• parental/familial/cultural disconnection;
• secure and insecure parental relationships;
• being a big sibling;
• being raised by a single parent;
• anti-Black racism, anti-queerness, and anti-neurodivergency;
• the UK school system;
• home-schooling/unschooling;
• issues with peers and teachers at school;
• detention and exclusion;
• and much more!

I have completed multiple workshops and trainings by a range of somatic trauma therapists, activists, researchers, writers, and organisations including crisis response, anti-carceral suicide training, boundary work, and most notably my scholarship-awarded Somatic Attachment Therapy Certificate with The Embody Lab. The list is long, and ever growing, but I will always do additional research whether or not what you need is outside my scope of lived or learnt experience. 

How does it work?

After contacting me, we can schedule a free 15min consultation after which, providing we are the right fit, I will send an intake form for you to complete with what particular goals you have for our work together. Then, we can joyfully move forward into your care plan!

I can be flexible with payment plans and no-cost spaces are available for those who need it. Please do not hesitate to reach out, especially if you are a young person.

Care Plan Examples…

Everybody’s care plan is personalised which means the contents and the cost will look different for all. I can be flexible with payment plans and no-cost plans are available for those who need it. Please get in touch for a free 15min consultation and/or a quote.