Past Speaking Engagements
GOLD LEARNING BIRTH AND BEYOND
Opening Keynote • Awakening the Parent: Are You Supporting or Sabotaging Your Client's Transformation? October 5th, 2020.
EMPOWERED BIRTH COURSE
Online childbirth course presented by Commune, featuring many experts in the field of childbirth, including Britta.
CONSCIOUS CITY GUIDE DIGITAL REDIRECT
Relationships Under Quarantine • with Brent Kessel and Britta Bushnell, PhD
Northwest Doula Conference
Keynote: "The Identity Transformation of Becoming a Parent"
October 28, 2019 • Seattle, WA
Lamaze LIVE! • Lamaze International Annual Conference
Pittsburgh, PA
April 13, 2019 Mainstage Presentation
Transformed by Birth: Preparing Parents for the Life-Changing Experience of New Parenthood
Annual Fundraising Breakfast • Smart Start New Hanover County
Keynote: "It Takes a Village to Raise a Child"
April 9, 2019
DONA INTERNATIONAL SUMMIT 2018
Ft. Lauderdale, FL
July 21st, 10:15-11:45am
Reducing Emotional Trauma from an Unexpected Cesarean
Much can be done to reduce the emotional impact of an unexpected cesarean. By addressing cesareans prenatally and role-playing a typical cesarean, parents learn coping skills ahead of time in the event a cesarean becomes necessary. This session taught birth professionals successful ways to support parents before, during, and in recovery from an unexpected cesarean birth. Learn more.
ICEA CONFERENCE 2018
Louisville, KY
April 20th, 9:30-10:30am
The Veneration of Information and Technology, and the Loss of Intuition:
How Childbirth Educators Can Help Parents Learn to Listen to Their Own Inner Wisdom
Access to technology is an ever-present modern experience. No time in history have we had such easy access to information as we do today. Why then do parents struggle more than ever with how to birth, care for their baby, and generally make their way through the myriad of “right ways?” As a culture, we have a veritable encyclopedia of information in our back pockets in the form of our smartphones. Gone are the moments of wondering how to best handle a situation or a question; if we are unsure, we simply "Google it." We have become more uncomfortable pausing in the increasingly unfamiliar space of not knowing. The rapid motion to find the answer (as if ONE exists) has quieted the voice of our intuition making it submissive to other sources for guiding our actions, harder to hear, and seemingly less trustable.
Birth professionals have a unique role to play in helping parents find ways to re-engage with their intuition. By watching the ways we act as the all-knowing expert from which right answers flow and learning instead to adopt more curiosity about what the parent knows, wants to know, and what they think would be best for them, birth professionals can go a long way to helping parents listen to their own wisdom.
In this one-hour session, we will identify the way technology and information have reduced parents' familiarity with wonder, not-knowing, and uncertainty, and increased their dependency on outside knowledge through the internet or experts in their field. Additionally, we will learn new ways birth professionals can support parents in developing a stronger sense of their own wisdom, preparing them to be stronger and more resilient birthing individuals and parents.
MIDWIVES CONFERENCE MANA CAM 2017
Presented by The Midwives Alliance of North America and the California Association of Midwives Foundation
Being Solution-Focused in a Problem-Focused World: Communication Skills to Build Bridges Rather than Walls
It is very easy to focus on the problems we face. New parents often come to healthcare providers looking for the “right” answers. But becoming a parent requires learning to look within for the answers that are right for us, rather than the illusive “right answer” that does not exist universally. As healthcare providers, we can significantly help parents develop the skill of looking for solutions that work best for them and in turn, helping to engage their inner parental resources so necessary during the years of parenthood. Additionally, as midwives, it is important to have skills for working with other healthcare professionals during transfers and other situations. Learning to build bridges rather than walls with other professionals improves the overall care of the parents you serve. In this session, we will explore a different mindset; one that is solution focused and involves asking more and different questions.
An audio recording of this presentation can be purchased here.
DONA INTERNATIONAL VIRTUAL CONFERENCE 2017- Cultivating Connections: It starts with us.
Available online
Control and Certainty in Childbirth: How these cultural ideals work against parents and what doulas can do to help
Birth, as a natural event, challenges ideas of control and defies certainty. Birth and postpartum doulas are in a unique position to help families develop tools for responding skillfully to unexpected events in childbirth and parenting. This session addresses why a more open mindset is beneficial in parenthood and how doulas can help new parents strengthen this skill in the process of preparation for and experience through labor and birth.
ABACUS WEALTH PARTNERS CONVERGENCE 2016
Solution-Focused Communications Workshop
Led two different two-hour sessions for financial planning company at their annual company gathering on using solution-focused questions with clients.
