Leadership
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Erica Gerrityegerrity@ostarainitiative.org
Erica Gerrity is a co-founder of the Minnesota Prison Doula Project and the Executive Director of Ostara Initiative. She is a licensed clinical social worker and doula who has worked with incarcerated pregnant people and their children for the past twenty years. In 2014, she and her team worked to write and pass Minnesota’s Anti-Shackling legislation. In 2018, Erica was awarded an Ashoka Fellowship for her efforts to create social change at the intersection of reproductive health and incarceration. |
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Raelene Bakerrbaker@minnesotaprisondoulaproject.org
Raelene Baker is the Director of the Minnesota Prison Doula Project and has been involved with the program since its beginning in 2008. Rae has been a certified doula for 15 years and has attended over 350 births during that time. In partnership with incarcerated mothers, she developed an evidence-based, trauma-informed prenatal curriculum for those experiencing pregnancy and birth during incarceration. Rae specializes in providing loss-specific doula services. |
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Tonja Honseytonja@werisemn.org
Tonja Honsey is a revolutionary mother, an incarceration survivor, and a community healer. She has worked as a grassroots organizer since 2003, and is the founder and Director of We Rise!. She uses her lived experience to advocate for the change that is needed to restore our communities from the trauma of mass incarceration. Tonja was named a Soros Justice Fellow in 2019 for her work on We Rise! |
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Rebecca Shlafer PhD, MPHshlaf002@umn.edu / www.rebeccashlafer.com
Rebecca Shlafer is a University of Minnesota Assistant Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Ostara Initiative’s Director of Research. Dr. Shlafer received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her Ph.D. in child psychology from the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota. During her graduate studies, Dr. Shlafer has focused her research efforts on studying children’s developmental outcomes in the context of risk and adversity. For the past eight years, she has partnered with the Minnesota Prison Doula Project to evaluate outcomes and systematically collect the experiences of incarcerated birthing people. |
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Chauntel Norrischauntel@prisonbirth.org
Chauntel Norris is Co-Manger for the Alabama Prison Birth Project as Manager of Advocacy, Forward Vision, and Change and the Co-Founder of Baobab Birth Collective. She is a native of Birmingham, AL and attended the University of Alabama at Birmingham where she earned her B.A. in African American Studies & her B.S. in Psychology. Chauntel is a DONA trained Birth & Post-Partum Doula, a Lamaze trained Childbirth Educator and a Certified Lactation Counselor. She also serves on the board for the Alabama Breastfeeding Committee. |
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Ashley Lovellinfo@prisonbirth.org
Ashley Lovell is the Program C0-Manager for the Alabama Prison Birth Project. She is a Lamaze-Certified Childbirth Educator, a DONA-certified birth doula, and a peer breastfeeding counselor. She received her B.S. and M.S. from Clemson University and Auburn University in wildlife sciences, but eventually left her career in natural resources to focus on professional birth work. As an independent doula for 7 years, she has assisted women in birth in 10 different hospitals in Alabama and Georgia. |