Tikvah Wadley, AAS, CCE, CD(DONA),BDT(DONA)
Director of Education
Tikvah Wadley, AAS, CCE, CD(DONA), BDT (DONA), a Certified Doula and Birth Doula Trainer through DONA, has worked in the community for nearly 20 years and believes in empowering women in today’s society. Her didactic and experiential training approach welcomes creativity and learning for every participant. An activist for perinatal health, she has served as a Lactation Counselor since 2003 and a Certified Child Birth Educator since 2002.
In 2012, she trained young people to become community-based doulas for youth in Chicago’s foster care system, through HC One’s partnership with UCAN. She continues working with this program, and with other community-based, peer-to-peer support programs around the country, today.
Tikvah is a warm and caring, experienced and often humorous public speaker, and is adept at resolving conflicts. She was instrumental in recruiting more than 500 people for the University of Chicago Doula Project, taught a variety of classes for the YMCA. and co-trained breastfeeding peer counselors and community health workers. Tikvah understands the importance of Doulas and the why behind why we need Doulas whether families can afford them or not! She was a teenage mom who gave birth alone and never wanted anyone else to experience the loneliness. She believes Doulas can make the world a better place and she currently serves on DONA, International‘s Board of Directors as the Director of Education. She’s also a Healing Practitioner, trained by W.K. Kellogg Foundation. She hosts healing circles nationwide and is skilled at having hard conversations with ease.
In her free time, Tikvah likes to go treasure hunting — meaning, she looks for people to share encouraging words with, often strangers, for something they may be going through.
“A community heals itself. We facilitate the healing.”