Who is behind Healing Hands Community Doula Project?
DARLINE TURNER, PA-C, MHS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Darline Turner is the founder and Executive Director of Healing Hands Community Doula Project. A Physician Assistant by training, she turned to doula work following the (traumatic) birth of her daughter and high risk pregnancy with her son. She is passionate about lowering rates of maternal morbidity and mortality in BIPOC childbearing people, and established Healing Hands in an effort to increase the number of birth workers of color available to serve childbearing people of color. However, she is just as passionate about “caring for the people who care for childbearing people”. Birth work is intense, and she has been dismayed at the inequitable and inadequate pay. She strives to make sure that the birth workers that she trains and employs are able to earn a living wage while doing the birth work that they love.
Darline is a member of “The Sandwich Generation”, caring for her parents while pouring final bits of wisdom into her daughter and son who are preparing to leave the nest. She is also a dog mom to her Black Lab CJ. She spends her free time walking and hiking with CJ or cycling with her local cycling club.
Harris County Texas
LuCretia Anderson, Harris County Program Manager, PCHW, PCHWI
LuCretia Anderson is the doula program manager for Healing Hands Community Doula Project. LuCretia is a doula, placenta encapsulator, and advocate for Black Maternal Health. Her passion has always been to empower women of color and help them reach their highest goals. Naturally that led her to want to empower women in birth! She has been a doula since 2018 and that has lead her to now train other women of color to become doulas. Her goal is to not only educate childbearing women of color about pregnancy, labor and delivery, but also to teach black women how best to serve and support them.
Central Texas
Melissa Harner, Central Texas Program Manager, CPhT, PCHW, PCHWI, MA
I’m a Texas native and mother of three. Prior to teaching I worked as a Pharmacy Technician and Phlebotomist. I love to learn and am passionate about all things healthcare related.
Becoming a doula has been eye opening for me because I now see all the disparities and unnecessary things that were forced upon me when I gave birth to my sons. I almost died when giving birth to my sons due to being ignored when I told them that something was wrong and I didn’t feel right. I asked the nurse to check my blood sugar because I know that it can drop when I don’t eat. I coded twice before they finally took my blood sugar and it was 32. I believe that if I had had a doula with me to help me navigate the healthcare system and to advocate for me during my births, these complications would have never happened. This is why I decided to become a doula. To help other moms like me. They will not be over looked and they will be heard every step of the way!
Eva Roberts, Senior PCHW Trainer, PCHW, PCHWI
Hello, My name is Eva Roberts and I’d love to be your doula!
I have been a Community Health Worker for 10 years and worked with Austin Public Health’s Maternal Infant Outreach Program (MIOP) supporting childbearing black women and educating them about their healthcare choices. It is important to me to help women navigate the healthcare system, and to obtain the community and health resources that they need to have healthy pregnancies and healthy babies. I have over 10 years of experience providing birth support as well as breastfeeding, parenting and life skills support to black childbearing women. I’m bilingual English/Spanish. My mother is from Guadalajara and my father is Chinese and Puerto Rican.
I’m a mother of 5 children, all preemies, and a grandmother of 11 . It would be my honor to be your doula and provide you with support to help you have complication free pregnancies, labor and delivery and healthy, full term infants.
Antoinette L. Hannah, Williamson County Program Manager, M.Ed., PCHW, PCHWI
Dedicated and compassionate maternal and child health educator and advocate, Antoinette Hannah has over 12 years of experience in the field of Maternal Child Health. She began her love for Maternal Child Health and her career at the Hamilton County health department where she was hired as one of their 1st ever Maternal and Child health educators working with their IRIS Umbrella Project. A program that was born out of the State of Tennessee Governor’s office to address the high rates of infant mortality in the communities of people of color. Antoinette currently works for the State of Texas as a program specialist providing consultation and technical assistance to Early Childhood providers across the State of Texas.
Antoinette holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Health Communications from Grand Valley State University as well as a Master of Health Education certification from Union Institute and University. Antoinette currently holds a State of Texas Community Health Worker certification and is currently training to become a certified prenatal, birth, and postpartum Doula with Commonsense Childbirth Institute and Healing Hands Doula Project. Antoinette also plans to pursue a Master of Public Health degree in the fall of 2023.
A wife and proud mother of 4 breastfed babies, she enjoys spending time with her family and attending her kids many activities.