Evaluating Birth Work Courses, Trainings & Legal Contracts

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

doula, contract, birth, give, work, people, doulas, folks, receipt, worker, person, year, offering, state, space, learn, teaching, money, lawyer, making

SPEAKERS

Denise Bolds, Ravae Sinclair

Ravae Sinclair: 00:00

Oh, good. Hi, everybody. My name is Ravae Sinclair.

Denise Bolds: 00:04

Hi, I'm Denise Bolds.

Ravae Sinclair: 00:06

Welcome to our podcast Doula That! Oh, yes, yes, yes. Thank you for taking the time to join us. We know that your time is precious, and it's valuable. And we hope that we keep adding to your work into your day and give you a space to have some aha moments. So let's see. Let's dive in.

Denise Bolds: 00:28

Let's go baby.

Ravae Sinclair: 00:29

Okay, so for doula skills, we always start off with a doula skill, we thought it would be helpful to give you a little bit of a checklist for how to VET courses that folks are out here offering as a course, I'm scrolling on social media, I'm seeing courses being promoted, because there's a lot of that at the end of the year. And you see the face I'm making it while watching the video, you're not seeing my face, but I'm making a face. sort of wondering I'm like me and as I was a brand new doula or not so plugged into the industry or seasoned, how do they know where to go for quality education? You know, this is a thing for me, this is why a big part of my why for starting National Birth and Postpartum Pros is I want folks to have a space to go to when you need continuing education. And you know, it's reliable, it's good, it's quality, that we've already vetted it for you. You don't have to wonder, but man, I scrolled across one offering and I was wondering! The post itself did not have enough information, right? And all of the answers in the comments had typos. And I thought, one I'll let it go. Two. But it was like every post and I'm thinking, Oh, I'm supposed to be learning from this person. But like, the grammar, and I'm not, I'm not one of those folks that can't get past misspellings or the wrong like, use of a word. But it just was so compounded because of the exchange, like the link didn't work there was. So even like communication about the link that was put out, I thought, Oh, she's not ready. She's not ready. She's not ready.

Denise Bolds: 02:21

Ready. She didn't do her work to---you want you.

Ravae Sinclair: 02:25

Listen, but, kudos to you for putting it like doing the work to like your desire to actually help and educate and bring people along. But it just was I was like, wait a minute, how would a birth worker know if this is like good quality content? I guess I was seeing signs that it might not be good quality content. But how else would someone else know? So I think we started thinking through a list or ways tips that we can offer you to kind of help you figure out if this is a person, like when your courses being offered if it's somebody you can learn from.

Denise Bolds: 03:00

Exactly.

Ravae Sinclair: 03:02

Okay. All right. Should we just start with the list? Go down the list? Yeah,

Denise Bolds: 03:05

let's go. Let's go.

Ravae Sinclair: 03:06

Okay,so just brainstorming, we came up with like, Google them.

Denise Bolds: 03:06

Mm hmm.

Ravae Sinclair: 03:08

A good 'ol Google Search. This is where you could do a Google search. And that can serve you well! Just kind of like seeing who they are. If like, what they're teaching is something that they like, are really, truly an expert in or if they just came, Johnny, you know, came along and just decided, I'm going to teach doulas,

Denise Bolds: 03:29

Johnny, COVID. Lately,

Ravae Sinclair: 03:31

Johnny come lately! Yes. Yeah. Quite honestly, there's a little bit of that happening in our industry right now people say, Well, I'm a business person, but like, I'm just going to decide that I'm going to teach to birth workers,

Denise Bolds: 03:46

right.

Ravae Sinclair: 03:46

And they don't actually know about our work. Their business tips might be kind of general, and they could be effective. But if you also don't know the industry, you haven't been in the spaces where you, if they haven't been in the spaces where you have to go, there's going to be something a little bit lost in their sensibility. So Google them and actually see like, what do they really do in the world?

Denise Bolds: 04:10

What do they really do? And absolutely, if you have a small circle of friends or a mentor, if you have a doula mentor, and you're thinking about taking the training, go to your mentor, a good mentor can give you the Tea on a lot of things.

Ravae Sinclair: 04:24

Yeah, so that's the that's on the list. Ask folks about them.

Denise Bolds: 04:28

Mm hmm.

Ravae Sinclair: 04:29

Yeah, you can ask it, you know, there's also a lot of hateration in the industry. So like, you know, listen, you can take it with a grain of salt, like, you know, because they had an issue with that person, you might have an issue with that person, like and have to take on people's stuff. But it is helpful to get the basics. I mean, like the things you probably want to know is like, are they really they a birth worker? How long have they been doing this work? I mean, I see people offering courses and I'm like, she's been a doula for three years. She just came into the industry. She came into the industry at the height of the pandemic. She hasn't been in a hospital. She doesn't have probably 20 births under her belt.

Denise Bolds: 05:02

if that

Ravae Sinclair: 05:03

But teaching in a way that like, and, you know, and putting themselves in positions as a mentor so i, okay. Interesting! You know that's usualy where we go, right? we're just like, Girl Did you see that? Oh, very interesting.

Denise Bolds: 05:21

like,Yo, what's this person's connections? What is this person span? You know, I know Ravae Has the span Ravae Has the reach, okay? Ravae Right now she can go on her phone and pull out a doula from across the pond. Okay, she allowed her a doula in another timezone. Okay, doulas, trainers, nurses birth worker. Brooke, clinical professionals, midwives. You know, that's the span, that's the reach, you want somebody who's going to train you to have. I'm a close second, because I'm a social butterfly. I know a lot of people. So I got a span out there, too. But a lot of these people haven't made those connections at all.

Ravae Sinclair: 06:02

Right. And I think, you know, teaching is not just like a technical part of the work that you're doing. It is about the sensibility, which sensibility comes after doing the work and being in the space. That's why I said, like, Google people, and like, just see like, what qualifies them to be in this space in this birth worker space specifically to teach to you, even if they're a business guru, or like, you know, just think about what you might want to get out of it. What might come if they don't actually have the birth worker sensibilities? Oh, okay, so we we said, Google them. And we said, ask folks about them. The other one is check their social media. So have they been established for five years or more in the birth space? What kind of ways have they been doing the birth work on social media will tell a lot. So this, this is what the caveat, if you check my social media, you will know nothing. Because I've been doing work, I ain't got time to be, you know, social media is not where I spent all of my time.

Denise Bolds: 07:09

But do they have a web page?

Ravae Sinclair: 07:10

I'm starting to Dibble and dabble. Right? But do they have a webpage? If you Google me, you will see, a Google search will tell you what you need to know social social media won't tell you what you need to know about me.

Denise Bolds: 07:21

Articles written about you, presenting in conferences and presentations and panel discussions. You're out here on the frontlines. Absolutely.

Ravae Sinclair: 07:29

Yeah. So everybody's in everybody, you might not be looking for a seasoned person, but it can be very helpful, depending on what the topic is, the topic might not be all that in that deep, okay, in which case, you know, whatever. But if you're looking for some, some leadership, and some depth that will come in the course, then yeah, check, check on people, like do a little bit of vetting. Um, the other thing is kind of the obvious thing. The fourth one is have a conversation with that person. Have a consultation, call them up, email and DM them, send them an audio note, ask them some questions. So if you're going to make this investment, then make the investment. Do your research, and maybe just talk to them directly. Talk to them. Okay, the other one is probably available. Number five is get a course outline.

Denise Bolds: 08:20

There you go.

Ravae Sinclair: 08:21

So that you can actually understand what what are the objectives? What are we supposed to get out of this course? Find out if they even have objectives? There you go. Before you purchase, right before you purchase, make sure this is an organized course that actually has a list of objectives.

Denise Bolds: 08:37

What platforms are they teaching on?

Ravae Sinclair: 08:41

yeah, that's the sixth one is like getting a preview of the course to understand. Is this the way that I learn? Are they going to be offering this course in a way that I actually can receive it and be successful in getting the learning so? Yeah.

Denise Bolds: 08:58

And last but not least my favorite Ravae made sure you're gonna get some contact hours out of this investment you're making now?

Ravae Sinclair: 09:06

Yes, yes. Yeah. You know, if you if you listen to this podcast once or twice, you're you will know that Denise values that those credentials like being able to go beyond the time and money that you spent to learn, but actually be able to use it if you're working on credentialing, or being able to have a resume of like, what trainings have I taken, get that certificate, get the credentials, those contact hours or continuing ed units or whatever it is that helps you down the road. Leverage! leverage my black doulas! leverage Medicaid doulas! Leverage TRICARE, doulas. It's called leverage, okay. And you need that to build your practice. Absolutely. And some classes might say they're applying or pending that might make a difference. So think about that. Just making sure that you are it's going to reverb beyond And the immediate class for you. Okay, I think that's our checklist, y'all. So hopefully this will help you as you're getting inundated with courses being offered and people coming to you and your you've not encountered them before in any other space. How do I know that this might be a good investment? So check out the checklist. I will add it to the show notes so you have a sense of things so you can go back to it. But um, okay. So that's the doula skill. We hope that that will save you time, money and heartache. definitely save you time money. Yeah,

Denise Bolds: 10:35

there's a lot of doulas out here who got you know, built out of their money by doulas who are, you know, putting up fake trainings, taking the money and disappearing, shutting down the websites, closing out email accounts, and running off with 1000s of dollars. So this is something that you need to be diligent on.

Ravae Sinclair: 10:53

Yeah, absolutely. Oh, taking people's money. That has happened a lot.

Denise Bolds: 11:00

Yes,

Ravae Sinclair: 11:01

I know. I know. We're not into naming names. But listen,

Denise Bolds: 11:05

but we know, we know who they are.

Ravae Sinclair: 11:07

Here. Here's the thing. Here's the offering. If you DM us, we'll tell you. Really!

Denise Bolds: 11:18

will tell you,

Ravae Sinclair: 11:19

you know my position. Like I have not dealt with this person. I have not had money taken from me from

Denise Bolds: 11:24

No, I haven't either.

Ravae Sinclair: 11:25

But you know, I believe in naming names.

Denise Bolds: 11:29

Yeah.

Ravae Sinclair: 11:29

So I listen. Yeah, if you DM us, we will privately.

Denise Bolds: 11:36

Yeah. And you shouldn't have to wait six months to a year to get your certificate either.The training?

Ravae Sinclair: 11:43

Right, exactly. Okay. All right. So let's drop down to birth worker, business tip, tip and then like a longer tip. Okay. So the quick tip is we saw somebody posted I thought was pretty interesting. And kind of like a basic question. But if they're a newer, a doula they really don't know. And if they didn't get like extensive business training, they don't know. So the question is, if you take cash, how do you account for that? How do you report that income? In this case, it appeared the person was a postpartum doula. So there's this continuous weekly receiving of payments, but birth workers also receive regular payments, sometimes like through weekly deposit or monthly deposits. Okay, so here's the thing, if you take cash, give these folks a receipt. So you might need to go into Walgreens, Walmart, somewhere, staples, and get a old school receipt book that has carbon copy.

Denise Bolds: 12:37

Yep,

Ravae Sinclair: 12:38

where you fill in with the name, the amount, what it was for, give the dates on the memo line, and you write this out, write it out, it's called a receipt book, y'all. Some folks I know have probably never seen anything like this, because it's very similar to what, like us writing a cheque. And most a lot of people don't know what a cheque is, have never had a checkbook. But there's also it's called the receipt book. And you, you would give them the original like that top copy, you would keep the carbon. And that's how you can account for if you ever get audited. Or if you need to give it to a bookkeeper, you can account for how much money you receive. Never ever, ever, ever, ever receive cash without giving a receipt. So if this is you, and you've been receiving cash, all 2023, please turn around, create receipts, you can do it retro actively create some receipts, this is going to save you a lot of time as you're getting tax prep.

Denise Bolds: 13:31

Yeah. Now, just just to jump in on what Renee said, yeah, you can go to the stationery stores and stuff and get those hard copies I just looked on my iPhone, there are apps that are receipts, create print and mail receipts, make a receipt. So you can actually download an app that's going to help you create a seat receipt that your client can sign right there. You can text it or email it to them. And boom, you've got it right there on the spot on your phone.

Ravae Sinclair: 13:56

Honey! I love this! I'm learning something new. Oh, I love it. Love the technology.

Denise Bolds: 14:03

There you go! Right in your phone.

Ravae Sinclair: 14:04

Make a record because when cash exchange there's no there's no record. There's no record. Like it's though it didn't happen. And that's a dangerous road to go down. If you end up being a cash business. How do you prove that you're actually making the money that you're making? Like you want to be able to say hey, I'm worthy of a business loan. Oh, how much money does your business make? So you got to think about future and you got to think about like not putting yourself in jeopardy with the IRS of like they learned they know you're taking in money. And it's not making the math ain't, mathing. Let's make sure the math maths y'all. Okay. All right. So that's the quick tip. Believe it or not, that was the quick one. All right. So the longer tip or business worker business is about contracts. So I said, Okay, we were just doing our little girlfriend chat.

Denise Bolds: 14:57

Yes,

Ravae Sinclair: 14:57

Denise hollered. So then I knew I was like Okay, maybe I'm onto something and share it with everybody.

Denise Bolds: 15:04

I love when she lawyers in the doula world, I love it.

Ravae Sinclair: 15:08

Honey because my brain so would you say something like, wait a minute, like? Yeah. So like our Yeah, yeah. Okay. So I saw like I see regularly because I make contracts and I have contract templates and I help people customize them. I always pay attention to these posts from birth workers where they're asking about contracts. So there was a post that asked, Where are you all getting your contracts? I've also seen posts where it's like, Hey, can you all share your contracts with me? So that I can, I'm making mine. And those are all so weird to me, because I'm like, first of all, most people have invested. But then there's all these, these folks who say they're, like, feel very generous. And it's like, well, I'll give you mine, that and I don't I, I want to comment on the casualness by which we're managing contracts. Y'all don't get caught practicing law without a license.

Denise Bolds: 16:06

Bring it home, counselor, bring it on in!

Ravae Sinclair: 16:08

First of all, dude, that's a crime. Do not get caught practicing law without a license.

Denise Bolds: 16:14

There you go.

Ravae Sinclair: 16:16

Number two, you do realize a state law runs all of this stuff. And if I give you my contract, which is valid, I had somebody to look at it and all of that in Pennsylvania. I give it to you and somebody you don't know what they're going to do with it. So let's say they just take your lift here of all the language and just implement as though Oh, it's good to go. Because I got it from someone who had a lawyer vet it and took a look at it. So it's reliable. And you live in California, Honey, state law governs you actually need to make sure that those clauses all those terms are actually valid in the state of California, because they may not be Oh, you might be using a contract that is totally not protecting you.

Denise Bolds: 17:01

There you go. I didn't know that. That's what made me holler while she was talking.

Ravae Sinclair: 17:05

Right! Right, which is why so this is the clarity. I am a I'm a lawyer from Wisconsin, my license came out of the state of Wisconsin. So when I customize when I do work for you, I give you a draft, you will usually get a it'll have the word draft and watermark across. Okay? The idea is for you to have a lawyer, I do the bulk of the work right, I'm going to do a lot of the work because it's on birth worker, right. So I understand the birth worker mindset, the needs the skills. And so I will give you a draft that like reflects that. But then you need to have someone in your state who's licensed in your state to add to look over to make sure that comports with state law. Now, what I do is I make that process probably more affordable, and short circuit. So I always give tips, I'll say you have a law school in your state. They have workshops, the

Denise Bolds: 17:59

law clinics, law clinics,

Ravae Sinclair: 18:02

you can take your simple contract to the contract clinic and have them review it that's free. Or you can have Chamber of Commerce, you can have the Chamber of Commerce, you can like take that contract, that review of that contract, the bulk of the work I've done with you, and you can take that and get that review really, really quickly. Okay. So I don't know what number I was on. I don't know if I'm now on number three. But be mindful when you are getting contracts from other doulas, from Etsy, or googling public language or just asking people for their copy. It may not be appropriate to you and may not apply to you. And I think you hurt yourself. You put yourself at risk and it doesn't you're not really doing yourself or another doula or birth worker a lot of service if you're sharing your contract. It is a fundamental thing. I think we've gotten into the habit and of sharing templates. I don't do it the way other people do it because attorney here so I can actually help you customize it and get it where you need it to go for the quick next step of having somebody in your area vet it really quickly and then you can implement. So I just think that we're really cavalier about legal stuff. And this is like part of your area, this is not a DIY. Do It Yourself part of your business. That's not this is that is not it. No more than like bookkeeping can be a DIY to a certain extent. And then you actually need a tax preparer or a CPA. But you got to figure out where those spaces are. This is a place to invest. Contracts is a place to invest in the early part of your business. Doesn't have to be a ton. I know some people. Some lawyers like to do a contract template is three or $400. Well, I sell the templates for 45. Or if it's a bundle, it might be $97. So you're getting three or four contracts in there. Because I know you have to do a another step, that is an investment, you have to have another attorney in your state, take a look. So I try to keep the price low in order to understand that, like, you might not have a ton of money, but you need to spend some money on this part of your your business. So just think about hiring a pro having a conversation with a pro. I just think it's important. Super important. So that's my tip.

Denise Bolds: 20:25

All right, all right. All right, get that contract in place,

Ravae Sinclair: 20:30

get it in place, come to National Birth, postpartum pros store and you can get more and if you have been a bit if you bought a contract for me, either on National Birth, & Postpartum pros or on RavaeSinclair.com. I have a webinar coming up where we're going to really actually talk about aspects of contracts to beef up your contract, or you can have caught some of my posts on Instagram. Lik, I am doing a week of tips on contract of like little aspects of a contract that you can tighten up.

Denise Bolds: 20:59

Nice for so yeah.

Ravae Sinclair: 21:02

Okay, birth worker excellence, where we we got any good birth worker news, any? Oh, I know, there were some awards given out for birth workers I saw.

Denise Bolds: 21:17

Yeah. I guess so, um,

Ravae Sinclair: 21:20

and folks launching birth in color. They're launching like a dad support. Something new going into 2024 birth and color has a dad program that they're really promoting. They're out of Virginia, I believe, or Yeah, black birth workers rock. They're having an award coming up for 2024 for black birth workers, which is very nice. Yeah,yeah. So I think people are like finding their their niche and finding a way to like really grow birth work and promote work. So kudos, anybody who's doing that? This is a important work. It's critical work. While we're in an age of like, war, and like, like recession, and all inflation and all of that. We're all trudging along, making sure that babies get fed, we're making sure that parents are comfortable with that parents have what they need. And so kudos to everybody who's doing that. I think we wanted to do some end of the year, just kind of like mindset. For folks, do you have anything to offer people as they kind of start to wind down the year? And maybe go into a little bit of a hibernation? Which that's what winter is for? Right?

Denise Bolds: 22:28

Yeah, you know, think about that vision board and think about some goals for 2024. What trainings Do you want to take? What is your projection of how many clients you'd like to serve in 2024? Think about some circles you would like to basically grow into and think about some things that you're willing to let go of that no longer serve you but they become quite a habit.

Ravae Sinclair: 22:55

Yeah, I agree with that. I think there are, there's some thing for everybody. And one of the things that I think can be scary as a newer birth worker, or just not so plugged in, is that very thing not being so plugged in. And so I think, decided to find a space that you fit in a group of people who can encourage you a group of people who you can learn from, I think it's super important, whether it's local, or like across the country, and they're online, maybe, but find a space where you can grow where you can learn where you can put down some roots, because birth work can be lonely. You know, it can be a tough, a tough gig. And I have seen this work take some folks down. I mean, we have seen the challenges with mental health. We've seen some people like really struggle.

Denise Bolds: 23:52

Oh, yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot. So you need to find those niches where you can get replenished, whether it be a motivation off of YouTube, whether it be talking to a close friend, going for a walk, giving yourself off that extra self care at King spa, going to bed an hour early journaling, there's so many things that I want you to take into consideration because we're giving doula work is giving and we put out a lot of energy, but we're also not taking back as much so you have to make sure that you're taking back to replenish.

Ravae Sinclair: 24:28

Yeah, I've seen some people doing like birth worker focus, like book clubs like reading. I've seen that I've seen recently like a surge and people doing like in person meetings or retreats or just like a day of being like doulas getting together and being together. I think some of that is coming out of the pandemic like we just want to be together a little bit more locally. So take part in some of that like get out of the house. Get out of your, your little your circle and like Find a space where you can actually get replenish where you can offer some things, but also get filled back up, I think, especially this time of year, like having your cup refills, super, super important. So,

Denise Bolds: 25:11

right and remember to let go of some things in your house in your closet, you're holding on to this doula thing, just in case you haven't touched it, you haven't used it in over a year, let it go to somebody else who might need it. Make way for that positive energy to reach you. Please do that.

Ravae Sinclair: 25:30

Yes, make way

Denise Bolds: 25:32

make way.

Ravae Sinclair: 25:33

So, so grateful for us having a chance to do this work together. Look what we made and 2023 like we just birthed this!

Denise Bolds: 25:42

Anybody told me this was gonna happen. Leave that I'm doing this with you. This is wild, it is wild. Such a great time. It's fun. And actually, uh, you know, my work is ease. It's like it's coming fairly easily. So I hope people are enjoying it. And like really learning and growing because I know we are, oh, we're having a great time doing this with you. And just working with Ravae and talking with her. Even though I'm older. I'm learning so much from her in her years of putting into practice and just the way she thinks, I think more on the social work side, she thinks the law side and we're just getting along really well. And it's just been an amazing journey this year, doing what we're doing together. So kudos to that. Thank you, Ravae.

Ravae Sinclair: 26:29

Yeah, absolutely. So we'll just gonna keep this going into the new year, I think some of the things that you can maybe see from us is are the more expansive topics, probably having some guests, I would love to like, find some folks who have some things to offer, and bring them on for their area of expertise. But we're here we're here to support you. So email us maybe over the break, we'll get a chance to get some of your emails, your feedback on our Facebook group. And so we can make sure we're talking about what you want to hear and that we're answering questions we will maybe one day do a we can do streamyard and do a live q&a That could be fun to people in real time. So we'll do some fun things in 2024. We just wanted to kind of get started. We were super excited to like get going and now that we're moving and grooving, it's like okay, yeah, I think we're gonna keep doing this. So yeah, so All right, Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to everyone. We'll see. Yeah. Yeah, Happy Kwanzaa. We'll see you all in 2024.

Denise Bolds: 27:31

Doula That!

Ravae Sinclair: 27:32

Doula That!, y'all!