Certified Lactation Counselors 2023 Recipients

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She is a certified nursing assistant, which she obtained in 2015. She has worked at numerous nursing homes helping our elders with end-of-life care and rehab. Although she started her career in the medical field working to care for the geriatric community, she has a passion for all things about birthing. She is on a journey to become a doula. Salima has completed training with "Black Birth Justice" of Louisville and will be receiving more training in the fall in anticipation of becoming a full-spectrum Doula. As for the future, Salima will embark on a journey where she can focus on helping women of color with breastfeeding as well as completing a course to become a massage therapist.

She is also known as Goddess is a Spiritual Healer from Louisville, Kentucky where she currently resides as a Full Spectrum Doula, Digital Content Creator, and Brand Ambassador. Nicole is best known for her Spiritual Readings, Mama’s Blessing Ceremony, and Clarity Journaling. It is Nicole’s mission to increase the advancement of life for all things at the cost of none, by seeking for others what she seeks for herself through living her life fully expressive, authentic, and abundant!

She is a LCSW/psychotherapist with training in EMDR and advanced perinatal mental health. She is also a DONA-trained birth doula. After losing her first pregnancy/baby due to medical error, God used her experience and trauma as the catalyst in her life to pursue involvement in the black birthing community. She is very passionate about the birthing community, black maternal health, and mental health. She is so thankful for the Louisville Coalition for Black Maternal Health and honored to be a recipient of this scholarship. She will utilize this opportunity to continue to support and contribute to the black maternal health community. Mary is a mother to an amazing 2-year-old daughter, a 7-year-old pug fur-baby, and married to her high school sweetheart/best friend.

She was born in Louisville, Ky but her travels through the foster care system landed her in Eastern Ky. She was born to a single mother who would become addicted to drugs (She is clean now). She started what she considers her healing journey in 2013 but in 2020, she truly understood her path. She had become pregnant with her youngest daughter. It was during this time that she found out about Doulas. Her cousin who would become her doula sent her the information about the Louisville Coalition for Black Maternal Health. She attended zoom sessions, and her life was changed. She listened to women speak about their birth traumas and relived her own. The Chocolate Milk March of 2021 put her in the path of Black Birth Justice, where she completed the ante/postpartum doula training. She knew she wanted to help women/families in this manner. It felt right. During that training, she became interested in lactation support. She has breastfed 9 babies and felt like she had suffered through most of it, learning as she went. She is the mother to 9 wonderful children ranging from ages 27 down to 1. She enjoys writing poetry, reading, hiking, anything artsy, and most of all being with my children.

She has worked as a Health Program Analyst within the Center for Health Equity (CHE) at Louisville Metro Public Health and Wellness since January. Before stepping into her current role, she served as a Maternal Health Coordinator within CHE for a year. Her role in the department has allowed her to step in as a facilitator for the Healthy Babies Louisville Coalition. While completing her bachelor’s degree, she worked alongside Louisville Metro Public Health and Wellness as an intern and assisted with the Participatory Budgeting Initiative, a piloting democratic process that allows community members to decide how public funds are allocated. Jan graduated from the University of Louisville with a Bachelor of Science in Public Health and Information Sciences. While attending the university she was inspired by a professor to become a birth and postpartum doula.

She is a Registered Nurse currently working at Georgia Chaffee Teenage Parent Program and Norton Healthcare as a Family and Community Childbirth Educator. She attended the University of Louisville and graduated with honors in 2015 with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing. With over 8 years of experience in healthcare, she has worked exclusively caring for pregnant and 

parenting persons belonging primarily to minority groups and underserved communities. She has always had a strong passion for promoting the benefits of breastfeeding, especially within underserved communities. More recently, she has found her niche in this work by teaching community breastfeeding classes and assisting breastfeeding teens in an outpatient setting. 

She has set a professional goal of combatting racial disparities in breastfeeding by empowering new parents to have the breastfeeding experience they desire and deserve.

is a native Louisvillian. She graduated from Kentucky State University in 2012, with BA in History and was briefly an educator in Frankfort, KY, before relocating back to Louisville, KY in 2014. She has always had a passion for supporting people in their time of need. Whitney is trained by the Pro Doula organization. She believes that the postpartum experience is different for every family, and offers postpartum support catered to individual family needs. In her free time, she likes to dive into all things Harry Potter, Marvel, and GoT.

She is honored to have the opportunity to be a part of this mission of birth work and healing. Arlydia recently decided to become a doula for 2 reasons: she supported her sister with all 3 of their kids and births. secondly, she wants to support women that have lost their mothers or support them during covid. she wants to be a sister to the sisterless or a mother to the motherless. her mission is to be a service to women and be their strength when they are low. she is married and has 3 lovely kids 2 boys and 1 girl!