Skip to main content
Denise Curtis Doula Services

Your cart

Your cart is empty.

My Profile
Denise Curtis, certified labor and postpartum doula in Los Angeles

Virtual Doula Mentorship

You hold space for families.
Let me hold space for you.

One-on-one mentoring for doulas anywhere in the US who want the confidence and the tools to start, grow, and thrive in their own practice.

Let’s Connect

Mentoring from a working doula

So you finished your training. Now what?

You have the certificate, the binder full of notes, and a whole lot of excitement. (Congratulations, by the way!) Then your first client calls, and the real questions start showing up.

How do you find your first clients, and how do you know a family is the right fit? What goes in your contract, and what do you charge? How do you work alongside a nurse who isn’t quite sure why you’re in the room? Training gives you the foundation. The rest of it tends to arrive one client at a time.

Mentoring gives you somewhere to bring all of it. I’m a Certified Labor and Postpartum Doula through CAPPA, a Childbirth Educator, a HypnoBirthing® Certified Educator, and a Lactation Educator. I’m also still very much in the room, supporting families at hospitals, birthing centers, and home births across Los Angeles and Northern Orange County.

Nearly all of it happens on Zoom, so you can be anywhere in the country. My clients are in LA; my mentees don’t have to be. (If you’re local, our first meeting can be in person.) Wherever you are right now (curious, newly trained, or looking to build a thriving practice), that’s where we start.

I hold space for families so they can birth their way. Mentoring is me holding that same space for you.

Let’s Connect

Why mentoring

A mentor changed everything for me.

When I first started as a doula, having a mentor was the biggest game-changer for me. I had a well-established doula I could bring all my questions to, and I got real-life experience through her. She helped me land my first clients (which sped up my certification), and I always knew I could reach out if anything came up. That took a huge weight off my shoulders. It’s what made it possible for me to jump into doula work full time and thrive from the very beginning.

I’ve been doing a version of this informally for a while now: walking newer doulas in my circle through the business side of the work, and trading questions, answers, and referrals in a couple of small doula group chats where we all look out for each other. Mentoring makes that official.

What I want for you is simple. I want you to walk away with the confidence, the tools, and the knowledge to start, grow, and thrive in your own doula business.

Experience & training

What I bring to your corner.

Certifications

  • Certified Labor Doula (CAPPA)
  • Certified Postpartum Doula (CAPPA)
  • HypnoBirthing® Certified Educator
  • Childbirth Educator
  • Lactation Educator
  • Spinning Babies® Trained

Birth settings

  • Hospital
  • Birthing Center
  • Home Birth

Areas I draw from

  • Labor Support
  • Postpartum Care
  • Childbirth Education
  • Feeding Support
  • Infant Care
  • Sleep Coaching

Ways we can work together

How would you like to be supported?

Single Session

One hour on Zoom, built around whatever you’re carrying right now. Bring one specific thing. Maybe it’s a contract you’re not sure about, a client interview coming up, or a pricing decision you keep putting off. We’ll work through it together, and you’ll leave with a plan. It’s one call, so the between-session texting and the add-ons below belong to the six-session program. A good fit if you’re not ready for ongoing support yet (or you’re not sure you need it).

Ongoing 1:1 Mentoring

Six one-hour sessions, spread out the way your life allows. Every other week for three months, or once a month for six. We start with a rough outline of what to cover (see below) and bend it around wherever you’re stuck. Between sessions, you can text or email me with questions during the day, 9 AM to 9 PM. I’m taking on one mentee at a time to start, so you get all of my attention.

Group Program

Coming later. A 12-week live virtual series for doulas, one topic a week, with a recording after each call and a group chat in between so you can lean on each other. It’s coming after 1:1 mentoring is up and running. Check the group box on the form and you’ll be the first to hear when it opens.

Optional add-ons for 1:1 mentees

  • Virtual shadowing. When one of my own clients is comfortable with it, you can sit in on a prenatal visit, a postpartum shift, or a birth over Zoom from my laptop, then debrief with me afterward. It depends entirely on that family saying yes, so it’s offered case by case rather than promised to every mentee.
  • On-call support while you're at a birth. Reach me by phone or text outside the regular 9 AM to 9 PM window, including from the hallway during a long birth. Let me be clear about what this is: encouragement and a steady voice for you, the doula. You’re the doula of record, your client’s care team makes the clinical calls, and I’m not attending the birth or giving play-by-play instruction. This one is available to a single mentee at a time, month by month, so if it’s spoken for, I’ll tell you when it opens up next.

Not sure which one fits? That’s completely normal. Every mentorship starts with a conversation, and we’ll shape the right fit together.

The outline

What can we work on?

Ongoing mentoring follows a rough outline that we shape around wherever you’re struggling most (or wherever you want to grow fastest). Here’s the general shape of it:

  • Business setup: The forms to file, the trainings worth taking, and the early marketing that gets your name out there.
  • Getting your first clients: Where to find them, how to interview so you're matching with families who are aligned with your practice, and what to document along the way.
  • Web presence and digital marketing: Your website, your listings, and how families actually find you online. (My husband does this for a living, and he joins for this one.)
  • Accounting and bookkeeping: So the money side of your practice doesn't become the thing you dread.
  • Birth and postpartum care techniques: The comfort measures and postpartum skills your training touched on, talked through in real-life detail.
  • Working with clients and providers: A collaborative-care approach to nurses, doctors, and midwives, plus the occasional tricky client or complicated situation.
  • Breastfeeding and pumping basics: Enough to support a family in the early days and know who to refer them to.
  • Self-care for birth workers: Burnout is everywhere in this community. We'll talk about how to build a practice you can actually sustain.

Single sessions can pull from any of these. So can the questions that don’t fit neatly anywhere.

Who this is for

Wondering if mentoring is for you?

  • You’re thinking about becoming a doula. You feel the pull toward this work but you haven’t trained yet. Let’s talk about what it actually looks like day to day, on-call life and all, so you can make a real decision.
  • You just got certified. Certificate in hand, first client pending, and about a hundred “wait, how do I actually do this?” questions. This is exactly the gap mentoring was made for.
  • You’re practicing and want to get sharper. You’ve attended births, and now you want to go deeper in specific areas. Feeding support, working within the hospital system, comfort measures, and the situations that never came up in training.
  • You’re growing a business. The doula part comes naturally. The business part? Less so. Let’s work on pricing, contracts, and finding clients in a way that doesn’t burn you out by year two.

Frequently asked

The questions I hear most.

Where do we meet? Do I need to be in Los Angeles?
No. I’m based in Los Angeles, but mentoring happens over Zoom and you can be anywhere in the United States. If you’re local, we can make our first meeting an in-person one over coffee. After that, most of our visits are virtual either way.
How often do we meet, and for how long?
Sessions are one hour on Zoom. Ongoing mentoring is six sessions, either every other week for three months or once a month for six, whichever fits your life. A single session is exactly that: one hour, one focused conversation.
Can I reach you between sessions?
If you’re an ongoing 1:1 mentee, yes. Text or email me with questions during the day, 9 AM to 9 PM. A single session is one call, so it doesn’t include between-session access. If you’d like to reach me outside those hours, there’s an on-call add-on, available to one mentee at a time.
What is on-call support during a birth?
It’s an add-on for ongoing mentees: while you’re at a birth, you can step into the hallway and reach me by phone or text for encouragement, a steady voice, and a place to think out loud. It is moral support for you, the doula. You remain the doula of record and your client’s care team makes every clinical decision. I’m not attending the birth, I’m not on your client’s team, and I don’t give play-by-play instruction. Think of it as a mentor in your pocket, not a second doula in the room.
What is virtual shadowing?
When one of my own clients is comfortable with it, you can join a prenatal visit, a postpartum shift, or a birth over Zoom, watching how it unfolds from my laptop. It depends entirely on that family’s consent, so it’s a case-by-case add-on rather than something I can promise every mentee. I’m the doula in the room; you’re there to observe and learn, and we debrief afterward.
I trained somewhere else. Does that matter?
Not one bit. Mentoring isn’t tied to any certifying organization. Wherever you trained, whether that’s CAPPA, DONA, DTI, or somewhere else entirely, we build on your training instead of replacing it.
What does mentoring cost?
That depends on what we build together, because a single session looks pretty different from six months of ongoing support. Reach out and tell me where you are in your journey, and I’ll walk you through the options on our first call.
Are you still attending births?
Yes. I’m an actively practicing labor and postpartum doula here in LA, so what I share with you comes from the work I’m doing right now, not from something I did years ago.
I’m still deciding whether to become a doula at all. Can I talk to you?
Please do. Some of my favorite conversations are with people who are still deciding. I’ll tell you honestly what this work looks like day to day, including the on-call life and the parts that are hard, so you can make a real decision instead of a hopeful guess.
What about the group program?
It’s coming, after 1:1 mentoring is up and running. The plan is a 12-week live virtual series, one topic a week, with a recording after each call and a group chat in between. Check the group box on the form and you’ll hear from me first when it opens.

Your clients get a doula in their corner. You deserve one, too.

Let’s Connect

Let’s talk about your doula journey.

Where are you in your doula journey? (pick the closest fit)
I’m interested in: (check all that apply)