Who’s Who at ALACE?

Jemma Boyle, Membership Coordinator
Jemma joined the ALACE staff in June 2005 and is responsible for most of the administrative aspects of our training and membership programs.

Jemma has a passion for birth activism, born out of her difficult birth experience with her first child, which ended in a cesarean section for ìfailure to progress.î This experience led her to read about VBACs and more about the birthing options available to mothers and families and to become an ardent advocate of natural birth and informed birthing choices. She went on to have a successful hospital VBAC with her second child.

Jemma took the ALACE Labor Assistant Training in 1999 and enrolled in the ALACE Childbirth Educator Training and Certification Program in 2000. Her passion to be involved in birth has led her to her current position with ALACE.

Jemma lives in Arlington, MA with her two children, Eva and Peter.

Whitney S. Hogan, Workshop Coordinator
Whitney is the most recent addition to the ALACE staff. She is the Workshop Coordinator, and is responsible for working with local workshop sponsors.

Whitney is a recent college graduate from Bowdoin College, where she majored in Biology and Environmental Studies with a minor in Chemistry. At Bowdoin, she was the student director of the Women’s Resource Center, as well as the leader of the student organization V-Day. Whitney was first introduced to birth while studying abroad in Belize. She was honored to have the privilege of living with an indigenous midwife in the Maya village of Santa Cruz. She is excited to work for ALACE, an organization that is grounded in ideals of female empowerment that will also allow her to further develop her interest in birth.

Randi Bigelow, Director of Childbirth Educator Training
Randi has been a childbirth educator and a labor assistant/birth doula since 1995. She completed the ALACE Labor Assistant Training in 1997 and has been an ALACE Certified Labor Assistant since that time. Originally certified by the AAHCC in 1995, she has been teaching her own consumer based natural childbirth classes independently and in hospital settings, and recently received a Childbirth Educator Certification from ALACE.

Randi currently teaches childbirth classes for Newton Wellesley Hospital, has facilitated training workshops for the Boston Association for Childbirth Education (BACE) and has participated in the training of current childbirth educators and doulas. Randi has also had the opportunity to speak at both the Partners in Perinatal Health conference and the Lamaze International conference in Boston.

Randi began consulting with ALACE in the Fall of 2004 and was very involved with revising the current manual. She is now ALACE’s Director of Childbirth Education Training, mentoring the childbirth educator trainees through their program of study.

Randi is currently enrolled in an associate degree nursing program with the goal of becoming a certified nurse midwife. Randi, her husband David, and two children Adam and Shai – live in Dedham, MA.

Susan Cassel, Director of Labor Assistant Training and Instructor of Doula Training Workshops
Since the early 1980’s, Susan has worked as a nurse, childbirth educator, childbirth educator trainer, doula, midwife, labor assistant trainer and mother of two children. Susan lectures in graduate programs, nursing schools, midwifery schools, and conferences, as well as being an instructor for ALACE, and the Director of Labor Assistant Training for ALACE. As a midwife, Susan has worked in homebirth, birth centers and hospitals. Previous to her recent move to the Boston area, Susan was a practicing midwife in San Diego working with the largest volunteer doula program in the country. Susan’s ALACE workshops incorporate all of her extensive experience and knowledge in the birthing field, as well as her commitment to the national evolution and recognition of a strong doula profession as a critical component of the birth team.

Therese Hak-Kuhn, Director of Labor Assistant Training and Instructor of Doula Training Workshops
Therese Hak-Kuhn is the mother of 6 children that she co-parents with her former husband, Happy as well as her partner, Paul. Her first birth was attended by an obstetrician in a hospital setting and her following births were attended at home by both Certified Nurse-Midwives and Direct-Entry Midwives.

Therese has worked professionally with pregnant women since 1992 as a midwifeís assistant, professional labor assistant, prenatal counselor, childbirth educator and breastfeeding consultant. She has attended over 400 births at home and the hospital as both assistant to the midwife as well as labor support in the hospital. She has experience working with a diverse population.

Therese is facilitator of a Home Birth Circle in her community and served as the editor and publisher of the monthly newsletter for years. She has her own home-based business of producing and commercially selling Aromatherapy Heating Pillows. She works part-time in an independent leadership school for fifth through eighth grade girls, giving her the opportunity to educate as well as empower. She has been teaching doula workshops for ALACE since 1996, having taught 100’s and 100’s of women (and some men) all over the continental US, Hawaii and Canada. She finds all of her work an honor and a privilege.

Nancy Draznin, Instructor of Doula Training Workshops
Nancy Draznin was born and raised in the Chicago area. She attended Rutgers University, where she received a B.A in English and Columbia University where she received an M.F.A in Creative Writing. Nancy met and married her husband Ken Nagy in 1989 and their first child was born in 1990. Nancy knew that she wanted to be a midwife then. She became a childbirth educator through Informed Homebirth/Informed Birth and Parenting, the precursor to ALACE. Later, she sponsored an ALACE Labor Assistant Training, and soon became certified. Nancy began practicing midwifery in 1999. She became an ALACE Trainer in 2002. Nancy lives in rural Idaho with her family where she continues to practice midwifery and labor support, gardens, does yoga and is a volunteer Firefighter and EMT.

DeeDee Farris-Folkerts, Instructor of Doula Training Workshops
DeeDee Farris-Folkerts is an experienced ALACE Labor Assistant Trainer, Professional Labor Assistant, childbirth edcuator, and has trained as a midwife. She is the creator of The MotherHip, a popular method of prenatal bellydance classes. DeeDee was recently featured on the cover of the Wall Street Journal in an article about bellydancing and birth. The MotherHip Prenatal Bellydance video is finishing production and will available soon.

DeeDee is Mom to two very talented young women, and wife to one very patient and supportive man. She lives in Columbia, Missouri, where she still attends births and enjoys performing with her bellydance troupe.

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Who’s Who in ALACE