Kimberly founded the Community Doula Alliance in 2020, she drew on her 36 years as a psychotherapist, clinical  social worker, full spectrum doula and maternal-child health advocate. Kimberly witnessed firsthand how systemic racism and institutional bias in hospital settings left Black and Brown mothers feeling unsafe, unheard, and vulnerable during one of the most significant moments of their lives.

Kimberly knew that the alarming rates of maternal mortality and morbidity in the Black community weren’t just statistics; they were a public health crisis requiring immediate, community-rooted intervention.

Previously, she was the Former Maternal Health & Early Childhood Parent Engagement Director at The Black Parent Initiative in which she supervised three culturally specific programs-The Together We Can Home Visiting, Sacred Roots Doula and Black Family Resource Center/Parent University programs which serves African/ African- American and Multi-Ethnic parents. Kimberly also has had her private consulting business for ten years providing culturally specific/cross-racial and cultural reflective and clinical supervision to non-profit organizations, home visitors and mental health clinicians as an Early Childhood Mental Health Consultant in Oregon, Colorado, Michigan and Maryland.

Kimberly was born on a Naval base in Portsmouth, Virginia. As a result of her early Navy upbringing, she has an extensive travel background and strong gravitation towards people from culturally diverse communities. She was raised in the Midwest in Cincinnati, Ohio. She relocated from Detroit/Ann Arbor, Michigan in 2009 and currently resides in the west suburbs of Portland, Oregon. She has a Dual Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology/Sociology from Kent State University and Master of Clinical Social Work degree with specialized training in forensic psychiatry from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor graduating Magna Cum Laude in 2001. She also has a Post-Masters Certification in Infant Toddler Mental Health, Perinatal Mood Disorders, Advanced Maternal Health Psychotherapy, Paternal Perinatal Health and is an Adjunct Professor at Portland State University’s Graduate School of Education.

Kimberly is also a Certified Labor & Postpartum Doula and Certified Lactation Counselor and Childbirth/Parent Educator, who has been a dedicated, passionate and proven trailblazer in reducing infant/maternal mortality rates in the Portland Black community. She began her doula career in 2014 and received her training with South African Blessed Way Doulas, International Center for Traditional Childbearing & Birthingway College of Midwifery, certified as a ICTC Full-Circle Doula. She is an activist for social/reproductive justice, voice and advocate for African-American women in improving their birth outcomes and reducing pregnancy and birth-related health disparities in Oregon. She was the visionary of the Sacred Roots Community-Based Doula program at the Black Parent Initiative, which provides holistic, culturally specific Full Circle Doula services to African/African-American families in the Portland and surrounding area. Kimberly has  served on three boards: the Oregon Doula Association-Board of Directors as the Diverse Communities Chair, Northwest Area Childbirth Educators Forum and the Oregon Infant Mental Health Association-General Member with a focus on racial equity, culture and diversity initiatives.  Kimberly  is committed to diversifying the doula profession and expanding doula services to communities of color in the State of Oregon.

Kimberly is also a happily married Nigerian wife with two adult children ages 30 and 21.

 

Nia Harris is a storyteller, land steward, birth-worker, and founder of community health practice Healing Us Evergreen. Her community work centers on devising restorative approaches to socioeconomic health disparities through cultural anthropological, public health, and social justice frameworks. She aims to build on existing discourses and advance perspectives of people and communities in reciprocal relationship with the Earth, our natural resources, and one another.

Nia is also a doctoral student in Cultural Anthropology at Duke University, pursuing certificates in African and African American Studies and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Global Public Health and Anthropology with summa cum laude honors at New York University. An interdisciplinary Black Feminist and Womanist scholar, Nia creates at the nexus of race, gender, health, ecology, and reproductive justice in the U.S. South, Pacific Northwest, and beyond.

Nia is a southern queer Black femme of African/American and Native American descent with deep roots in Eastern North Carolina (Catawba, Tuscarora, Saponi, and Lumbee lands).

Alexandria (Ali) Buchanan is a certified full-spectrum doula, childbirth educator, and mental health advocate with nearly a decade of experience supporting families through birth, postpartum, and everything the system didn’t prepare them for.

Her commitment to underserved communities is both professional and personal. After experiencing PPD with her first born and then losing everything to Hurricane Irma in 2017 during her second, Ali navigated pregnancy on Medicaid while rebuilding her family’s life from the ground up. These experiences brought her into birth work and reshaped how she teaches birth preparation and postpartum recovery for families whose circumstances don’t fit the standard model.

Ali holds a Master of Science in Higher Education & Leadership from Eastern Illinois University, where her thesis examined Ethnic Lesbian Identity Development within African American and Latinx communities, and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Miami University. She’s always been a staunch advocate for underrepresented groups whether mentoring pre-health students as a UF faculty member or teaching families who want culturally-congruent, trauma-informed care.

Her community work includes serving as a volunteer, doula trainer, and now social media marketing manager & podcast co-host for the Community Doula Alliance. Previously, Ali worked as the Operations Coordinator for Evidence Based Birth for 3.5 years, participated on the Lactation Equity Committee at Nurturely and Oregon’s Black Futures Maternal Health Work Group, and also leading the Latch On Breastfeeding Awareness & Support Event in Tigard, Oregon among other community-based events. She has taken her lived-experiences and entrepreneurial knowledge to build upon her passion within birth work.

Ali has spent almost two decades at the intersection of clinical knowledge and community reality — advising college students to become health professionals, training families and doulas alike to advocate, adapt, and show up fully prepared, no matter what the system hands them.

When she’s not working, you can find her enjoying a cup of coffee while on an adventure with her two rambunctious kiddos and partner.