Registration and costs
If you decide to ask for a dedicated Postnatal helper, you can fill in the registration form below. Our local coordinators will share your request within our local international network via mail and our Facebook group. Our network consists of trained by us Postnatal helpers aware of your postnatal needs and our code of conduct. Once a suitable helper is found, we recommend to have at least two telephone or Skype meetings before you meet in person. This contact should create mutual understanding and be your chance to agree on practical procedures, what to do or not to do, the boundaries, and timetable.
To find a list of 10 topics you can talk about with your helper :
Costs
Our network exists on donations. We ask each family who receive support to make a voluntary donation. The rest of the finances need to be agreed with the Postnatal supporter or doula. If the supporter/ doula is professionally trained, you are expected to pay an hourly fee, that suits to support work in that country. Most doulas work with a package fee, with a set amount of hours and activities. In some cases it’s possible to find a volunteer to help. If the helper needs to travel to you, you need to reserve extra budget for travel costs. If you are supported by a network of friends, make clear what budget you have available for food, and have small envelopes containing the agreed sum in cash to give out once meals have been delivered.
Once you have come to an agreement with the Postnatal helper, we ask you formalize it by signing the agreement form as well as the Code of Conduct. The Code of Conduct aims to set standards for a Postnatal Support Service including basic criteria for the selection of both helpers and families. It is expected that every helper and family who use the service through our PNS network will abide by this code.
Note : …Not only does the need for help never leave us alone; we must apprentice ourselves to its different necessary forms, at each particular threshold of our lives. At every stage we are dependent on our ability to ask for specific forms of help at very specific times and in very specific ways. Even at the end, the dignity of our going depends on others’ willingness to help us die well; the sincerity of their help often commensurate to the help we extended to them in our own life. Every transformation has at its heart the need to ask for the right kind of generosity…
©2014 David Whyte Excerpted from ‘HELP’
From the upcoming book of essays: CONSOLATIONS: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words.
