Milwaukee program helps new fathers

Studying Time: 2 minutes

When Joshua Liston-Zawadi’s spouse, Symphony, delivered their fourth baby, Harlem, at house_, the 31-year-old felt excluded.

The midwife would verify on Symphony steadily, however not him. 

That have prompted him to do one thing for the fathers.

In 2021, Joshua launched Dad Doula College to offer non-birthing mother and father with free workshops on emotional modifications, being pregnant and private development.

“As you undergo changing into a father or mother, nobody educates the non-birthing individuals or males on easy methods to navigate modifications inside your self,” Joshua mentioned. 

Doulas are licensed people who present emotional, bodily and informational help throughout the prenatal, birthing and postpartum course of.

From struggles to classes

Symphony and midwife Dr. Lakeeta Watts inspired Joshua to take his struggles and switch them into classes for others. 

Symphony helped create curricula, co-facilitate classes and coordinate, whereas Watts supplied Joshua with licensed doula coaching. 

“To see him decide to supporting different households in his distinctive method has been a pleasure to look at and help,”  Symphony mentioned. 

A male perspective

Watts observed Joshua typically stepping again to raise ladies’s voices in numerous environments however reminded him that his perspective issues, too. 

“I informed him that though that’s very honorable of him, we regularly lose the voice of males in these areas as effectively,” Watts mentioned. 

Dad Doula College initially began as a digital program through Zoom and Clubhouse due to the COVID pandemic. 

This system finally secured a spot contained in the Sherman Phoenix Market, 3536 W. Fond du Lac Ave., Milwaukee, the place in-person classes are held. 

(Joshua mentioned the digital choice remains to be being provided to dads looking for help overseas.) 

“Any dad who wants help, no matter the place you’re, I bought you,” Joshua mentioned. 

A protected house for dads

Among the many contributors of Dad Doula College is 34-year-old Markus Thompson, a single dad of two daughters who joined this system to attach with different fathers. 

Thompson described this system as an incredible emotional house to launch anxiousness, fears and self-doubt. 

“The lads I used to be round have been there throughout the instances I felt alone,” Thompson mentioned. 

All through this system, Joshua taught Thompson a few birthing plan, a doc created earlier than labor to inform hospital employees one’s preferences on how the birthing ought to go. 

“I train males that it’s their job to be answerable for this course of, and the one method they will do that’s in the event that they contain the individual that they’re caring for,” Joshua mentioned. 

Thompson mentioned the delivery plan included stuff you’d by no means consider like whether or not the mom needs music throughout labor or easy methods to advocate for her when she will’t herself. 

“Elevating kids isn’t a one-parent factor,” he mentioned.

Thompson is now a 2025 alumnus of Dad Doula College’s two-week program and encourages different dads to affix. 

On the finish of this system, graduates get a certificates, take their first household photograph and obtain free child necessities and a yr’s provide of diapers. 

For fathers hesitant about looking for help throughout being pregnant, Joshua lives by a motto that claims: “If I’m not OK, then nothing I contact can be.”

For extra data

Click on right here to register and study upcoming classes. 

In case you missed it: Our associates at TMJ4 additionally profiled this system.