Course Dates and Time

Live-Remote Training

Friday, October 18, & Friday, October 25, 2024

8:30am-4:30pm, Pacific Standard Time (PST)

Early Registration Rate: $325 (Deadline for discounted rate- September 17)

Standard Registration Rate: $375 (after September 17)

This two-day workshop provides advanced understanding and techniques to support survivors and is limited to attendees who have perinatal mental health, education and care for childbearing clients. Registration includes both the Foundational and Advanced classes and registrants must attend both trainings.

There are two different formats to choose. This page is to register for the 2-day When Survivors Give Birth – Foundational AND Advanced Training. If you would like to register for the 1-day only Foundational Training, click here.

Course Details

This important client care workshop focuses on understanding and healing the effects of childhood sexual abuse on childbearing women. This course gives participants who work with childbearing women knowledge and skills to compassionately and successfully serve those who express emotional concerns about childbearing. This training is a one-of-a-kind workshop, which is the culmination of decades of collaboration between Penny Simkin, PT, CCE, CD(DONA), and Phyllis Klaus, MFT, LMSW. Together they also wrote the 2004 book of the same name, When Survivors Give Birth. Join maternity care, mental health, and other allied providers to focus on the issues of one of the least understood of pregnant clients.

The Curriculum

• Cultivate an in-depth understanding of childhood sexual abuse and other forms of trauma
• Learn the impact trauma and childhood sexual abuse have on children and teens, adults, pregnancy, labor, the postpartum period, and breast/bodyfeeding
• Understand the connection between a childhood trauma history and intimate partner violence
• Understand the connection between a childhood trauma history and substance use
• Learn how to inquire about a client’s abuse history and how to respond to a disclosure
• Develop a framework for understanding power differentials in maternal/perinatal healthcare
• Improve your understanding of vicarious trauma and the importance of practitioner self-care
• Increase knowledge of strategies and tools for working with survivor clients before, during, and after birth
• Discover more about perinatal mood disorders and their connection to trauma
• Learn additional resources for working with trauma survivors
• Advance your communication skills, including active listening and containment strategies
• Understand when to refer to other colleagues/professionals
• Leave this training more able to serve pregnant, birthing, and postpartum people who have a history of childhood sexual abuse and/or other trauma

Course Notes

Certificates of completion are issued only to students present for the entire session and who complete all required work before the end of the workshop. For those participants with "on-call" schedules, we highly recommend scheduling back-up coverage, if possible, so you can be full present and participate. 

To review the Simkin Center When Survivors Give Birth refund and cancellation policy visit When Survivors Give Birth | Bastyr University (scroll down to Registration Policies). Please note our policy indicates a $50 processing fee will be charged for cancellations, no refund will be given for cancellations made less than 30 days before the start of the workshop. Transfers and make-ups are not available for When Survivors Give Birth.

Participants receive additional information, including login details, and the training agenda, two weeks before start of the class. 

CEUs will be provided

Recommended Text 

When Survivors Give Birth: Understanding and Healing the Effects of Early Sexual Abuse on the Childbearing Woman by Penny Simkin, PT, CCE, CD(DONA), and Phyllis Klaus, MFT, LMSW

The only book of its kind, When Survivors Give Birth, provides survivors and their maternity caregivers with extensive information on the prevalence and short- and long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse, emphasizing its possible impact on childbearing women. Challenges in the client-caregiver relationship are thoroughly portrayed, with much practical advice for improving trust and communication as well as self-help techniques to handle abuse-related distress. Chapters on birth counseling, psychotherapy, and clinical care of survivors make this book a useful resource for survivors and all who work with them (450 pages).

Instructor: Selena Shelley, MA, LMHC, CD, LCCE

Selena Shelley is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and When Survivors Give Birth Approved Trainer. She has a psychotherapy and consultation practice in the Seattle area, and specializes in working with pregnant and postpartum trauma survivors.

Selena was trained and mentored by Penny Simkin and Phyllis Klaus, authors of the groundbreaking book When Survivors Give Birth. She facilitates trainings for perinatal and health professionals - including nurses, psychotherapists, doulas, midwives, social workers, doctors, and sexual assault advocates.

Selena has been working with pregnant, birthing, and postpartum trauma survivors for over 25 years – first as a case manager with teen parents, then as a doula and childbirth educator, and for the past 14 years as a psychotherapist and trauma consultant. She taught a counseling course for the Department of Midwifery at Bastyr University, served on the Prevention and Treatment of Traumatic Childbirth (PATTCh) board, and helped develop and run the Birth Doula Services Program for Open Arms Perinatal Services in Seattle.

In her personal and professional life, Selena has learned how transformative the right kind of support during someone’s pregnancy, birth, and postpartum experience can be. To that end, she believes training professionals how to work more easily and effectively with trauma survivors is some of the most important work in perinatal and public health, and is honored to be a When Survivors Give Birth trainer.

Contact Us
(425) 602-3378
simkincenter@bastyr.edu
Simkin Center | Bastyr University