Presenter
Ashleigh Dodd
I am the General Manager of Ever May Community Collective, a collective bringing compassionate care, connection and community together across life’s most significant transitions. With more than 20 years’ experience in leadership, education and community services, I have spent the past decade working as a birth and end-of-life doula, educator and mentor.
As the former National CEO and founder of Mother Moon Mentors, I have a particular interest in full-spectrum doula practice, education, grief and bereavement, and the importance of informed choice and continuity of care. Through Ever May, we bring these areas of care together, from first breath to last, creating greater connection between birth, life, death, grief and community.
Honouring Birth, Honouring Death:
Reimagining the role of the doula across the full spectrum of life
What if the skills that make us powerful birth doulas are also the skills we need at the other end of life?
A thought-provoking session, inviting us to look beyond the traditional boundaries of doula care and explore what becomes possible when we consider the full spectrum of human experience — from birth and postpartum, through pregnancy and baby loss, grief and disability, to dying, death and farewell.
Drawing on the work we do at Mother Moon and Ever May Community Collective, we can explore the common threads that connect these profound transitions: informed choice, advocacy, dignity, ritual, education, presence and the simple power of being willing to be present.
This is a conversation about what it means to truly honour people at the most significant moments of their lives — and to consider how the doula profession might evolve when we stop seeing birth and death as separate worlds.