Currently, training at hospitals is available in the Boston or Los Angeles areas.
The model is for a training team to come to a hospital or birthing clinic and work with childbirth educators to add to their existing pre-birth training teaching modules that prepare couples to anticipate and deal with the changes they will be experiencing.
The approach is flexible. While our training team can come to give classes in a hospital setting as we do at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, ideally it will be possible for childbirth educators at a hospital or clinic to receive training to give the classes themselves. The classes can be given alone or integrated, in sections, into existing pre-birth classes. The training team works with the staff to develop a plan that works best for the particular setting. An example: the team initially gives the two classes to a group of expectant parents with staff observing, then provides a day-long training to staff who will become trainers.
For best connection with both fathers and mothers, male-female teams should teach the courses. Given that most pre-birth educators are women, an option is for New Child Project trainers to work with psychology or other departments at the site or in the community to identify male co-teachers.
Depending on the resources of the site, a recommended option is to include either a scheduled third class, 6 weeks to 9 weeks post-birth, or a series of open drop-in meetings at which couples to ask questions about the care of their new child, review their experience as a couple, and problem solve any issues that may have come up. At this time, relevant materials from the classes can be reviewed and covered in greater depth based on real experience, reinforcing the impact of the intervention.
Training team: In the Los Angeles area, Rob Straus, DMH, JD will train with Diana Peterson, with a co-teacher already trained by the project, or with a co-teacher trained at the site.
In the Boston area, Rob will train with Lorenza Holt, Executive Director of the Boston Association of Childbirth Educators (BACE), another BACE member, with a co-teacher already trained by the project, or with a co-teacher trained at the site.
Rob is a psychologist and lawyer with many years of experience as a couple’s therapist and child custody evaluator. He has spent the last four years studying pre-birth educational materials and developing, with Diana Peterson, an experienced childbirth educator and doula, the two-session class that is now given monthly at Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Burbank, California and bi-monthly at the Friedman Center of the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology in Newton.
For more information contact rob@newchildproject.