Welcome to Seattle Doula Partners! We are glad you found us and our little corner of the Internet. We invite you to read a bit about us, our background, and our approach to doula work. If you are seeking a doula and think that we may be a good fit for you, please reach out to us for a complimentary interview. We look forward to hearing from you and to the possibility of supporting you for your birth.
Our Name & Logo
Our business was founded in 2013 under the name Ohana. The word ohana means “family” in Hawaiian, and refers to one’s inner circle of both family and close friends. Both Autumn and Jocelyn have connections to Hawaii; Autumn lived there, and Jocelyn’s sister is a longtime resident in Honolulu. We loved the meaning of ohana as a community that provides support, especially during parenting.
As we embarked on a journey of anti-racist learning as white people a few years later, we realized that although we both have connections to Hawaii, using the term ohana constituted cultural appropriation because neither of us is Native Hawaiian. We made the decision to change the name of our business to Seattle Doula Partners and completed the brand shift in 2021.
Both of us grew up in the Seattle area and love this part of the world, so focusing our new brand on this special part of the Pacific Northwest made sense to us. Artist Amber Mabe designed our new logo, which is rich with symbolism about birth, our practice, and the natural beauty of our area. For example, we believe birth is a lot like trekking up an unknown mountain path. You never know what twists and turns you will encounter, and it helps to have companionship and an experienced guide. Your “mountain doula” may not have climbed your particular mountain, but we’ve accompanied lots of other birthing people up their mountain and can help you navigate yours. We’ll leave it to you to draw other parts of your own symbolism from our logo, and are happy to talk more about what it means to us!
Our Team
History of Seattle Doula Partners
We opened our doors under the business name Ohana on January 2, 2013 in Evanston, IL, just north of Chicago. The company started as two doulas — Jocelyn Alt and Giselle De la Rosa — with a vision to provide a place where expecting and new parents could find personalized, high-quality education and support as they prepared for and welcomed a new baby. To realize this vision, they grew the team to 15 people, including birth doulas, childbirth educators, parent group facilitators, prenatal yoga teachers, parent coaches, and therapists.
In June 2014, Jocelyn moved back to her hometown of Seattle. Autumn and Jocelyn met each other shortly thereafter at a doula conference. Together they launched the second branch of Ohana and began focusing more fully on doula services. In the summer of 2015, Jocelyn changed the structure in Chicago from a centralized organizational format to one in which the team members now take clients through their own private practices. To inquire about any of the services the team offers in Chicago, please contact the appropriate Chicago team member(s), listed here.
In 2015, Jocelyn was hired as the Lead Doula to build and run a hospital-based birth doula program at the Swedish Medical Center locations in Seattle, Issaquah and Edmonds. In 2016, the program added subsidized free doula services for low-income families. In 2017, the program added Bereavement Doula services, and in 2019 they added Postpartum Doula Services. The program now has over 60 doulas contracted in the three roles. For more information about hospital consulting services, click here.
Jocelyn and Autumn continued to deepen their own doula practice in a partnership model. They changed the name of the business to Seattle Doula Partners in 2021. See “Our Name & Logo” above for more history about that.