WEBINAR: Confronting the System and Caribbean Matriarchs: Ancestral Lessons in Advocacy and Care

Learning Objectives 

• Are you curious about the ancestral birthkeeping traditions that shaped Caribbean and African communities?
• Do you want to learn how storytelling, ritual, and matriarchal wisdom can guide modern birthwork?
• Would you like to integrate cultural and ancestral practices into your doula care while maintaining trauma-informed and inclusive foundations?

Workshop Description

In this 90-minute webinar, Lisa Felecia Westerman, BSW, Full Spectrum Doula, Educator, and founder of Shades Doula Services, invites participants to journey into the ancestral heart of Caribbean birthwork.

Drawing inspiration from writers such as Dionne Brand, Sylvia Wynter, and Omise’eke Tinsley, this session explores how Caribbean matriarchs — midwives, aunties, healers, and community leaders — have long embodied resistance, compassion, and advocacy in the care of birthing people.

 Participants will:

• Learn about ancestral Caribbean and African traditions of collective care and postpartum recovery
• Explore storytelling as medicine and a framework for advocacy and education
• Reflect on matriarchal values of community, interdependence, and reverence for birth
• Identify ways to respectfully weave ancestral practices into modern doula work
• Reclaim rest, rhythm, and ritual as essential tools for both families and birthworkers

Through storytelling, discussion, and reflection, this workshop re-centers birthwork as a practice of remembrance, cultural continuity, and liberation.

Who is it for?

This webinar is for doulas, birthworkers, educators, and community caregivers who want to deepen their connection to ancestral knowledge, explore cultural frameworks of care, and expand their understanding of advocacy through the lens of Caribbean and African matriarchal wisdom.

Details: This virtual webinar takes place on February 10, 2026 at 12pm EST.

Bio

Lisa Felecia Westerman, BSW, is a Full Spectrum Doula and Educator based in Vancouver, BC, and the founder of Shades Doula Services, a practice dedicated to culturally safe, trauma-informed care for Black, Indigenous, and racialized families. Her work honours ancestral wisdom, collective healing, and culturally responsive education.

This webinar is free to members and alumni of Doula School, Discover Birth, and The Nesting Place and is $35 for external participants. Participants will receive a certificate of attendance that can be used as 1 CEU (continuing education units) at Doula School.