velvet & bone
embodied doula immersion
Get on the list for the next cohort of Velvet & Bone.
If you feel the pull toward this training—the kind that lingers, that keeps whispering “this is for me”—we invite you to join the list for the next cohort.
Those on the list will be the first to hear when doors reopen, receive early access, and be invited into anything we create in the meantime.
This is not just a notification list- it’s the beginning of a relationship. We welcome you.
Strategy in Motion
• Birth plans as negotiation tools
• Intervention & complication literacy
• Preparing partners
• Managing dominant personalities
• De-escalation & room command
This is where support becomes leadership.
Mothering & Depth
• The Golden Hour & 4th Trimester
• PMAD awareness & referral clarity
• Pregnancy & infant loss
• Integrating your own birth story as a practitioner
And we close not with more information—
But with a rite.
Reflection. Witnessing. Integration.
You will not leave this the same woman who entered.
Let’s rewrite it so it feels intentional and elevated.
The Velvet & Bone Vault
In addition to the live immersion, you’ll receive access to the Velvet & Bone Vault — a curated digital library designed to deepen your clinical discernment and professional steadiness.
This is not a repeat of childbirth education.
It is layered reinforcement.
Inside the Vault you’ll find:
Resources you can offer to your clients
Systems-awareness insights to strengthen room fluency
Anatomy and fetal positioning resources
Somatic practice demonstrations for practitioner regulation
Replays of all live sessions (also available in Lesson 2 of each Module)
A curated reading and watch list to expand your understanding of trauma-informed care, institutional dynamics, relational intelligence, and feminine leadership
We do not believe in information dumping.
We believe in integration.
Live immersion.
Then refinement.
Then embodied practice.
The Vault exists to help you metabolize what you learn — not just accumulate it.
Investment
Choose Your Depth
Every woman enters through The Initiate.
From there, you choose how deeply you apprentice.
🌿 The Initiate — $2,250
The full 10-call Velvet & Bone immersion.
Access to the Vault.
Sacred closing rite.
For the woman ready to step into the standard.
🔥 The Bone Circle — $3,500 Total
Includes everything in The Initiate plus:
• 6 months of monthly mentorship & business strategy calls
• Case consult and hospital navigation breakdown
• Support as you begin or refine your doula practice
• Access to the private community
For the woman building a sustainable, respected practice.
A three-month payment plan available.
🩸 The Matriarch Path — $8,500 Total
(Application Only — 10 Spots Available)
Includes:
• The Initiate
• The Bone Circle
• Twice-monthly private 1:1 mentorship
• Advanced case review
• Leadership development
• Practice positioning & pricing refinement
Each founder will accept a maximum of 5 private mentees.
This is private apprenticeship.
This is for women building authority, not just experience.
Six-month payment plan available
Who This Is For
This is for the woman who:
• Knows birth is sacred and political
• Feels the gap between “support” and authority
• Refuses to be underprepared in high-stakes rooms
• Is ready to be respected in clinical environments
• Wants depth, not shortcuts
If you are looking for the fastest or cheapest certification, this is not it.
If you are building a long-term practice and refuse mediocrity—
You already know.
Reclaiming Womanhood in the Birth Room
Birth is not neutral.
It is blood. Hierarchy. Chemistry. Politics. Memory. Power.
And “well-meaning” is not enough.
The doula industry has normalized underprepared.
Weekend certifications.
Surface-level advocacy.
Soft language in hard rooms.
Women are walking into hospital systems without understanding the system.
Velvet & Bone was built because that is no longer acceptable.
What This Is
Velvet & Bone is a comprehensive doula training and apprenticeship pathway integrating somatic practice, trauma-informed care, relational intelligence, and leadership presence.
But here’s what that actually means:
You will not just learn how to support birth.
You will learn how to:
• Regulate your nervous system while the room destabilizes
• Read hospital hierarchy without shrinking
• Advocate without escalating
• Hold sensual embodied presence without losing authority
• Navigate policy, power, and personality dynamics in real time
• Build a practice that respects your worth
Soft as velvet.
Strong to the bone.
This is not entry-level energy.
This is a standard.
Built by Women Who Have Been in the Room
Velvet & Bone was not created from theory.
Between us, we bring over 50 years of combined experience in birth work, mentorship, and professional practice.
We have:
• Supported hundreds of families
• Navigated hospital systems across varying levels of complexity
• Held space through routine births and medical emergencies
• Mentored doulas at every stage of development
• Built sustainable, respected practices
This training was not built from trends.
It was built from rooms.
From experience.
From mistakes.
From refinement.
When we teach you to regulate your nervous system, it is because we have had to regulate ours.
When we teach you hospital navigation, it is because we have walked those corridors.
When we speak about leadership presence, it is because we have earned it.
Velvet & Bone is lived experience distilled into standard.
The Founding Cohort
This April, we open Velvet & Bone for the first time.
This is the Founding Cohort.
The women who enter now will shape the evolution of this movement.
They will always be known as the ones who established the standard.
We are accepting a maximum of 20 women.
Intimate. Intentional. Alive.
The Experience
Velvet & Bone is a 10-Call Live Immersion.
One Threshold.
Eight Chambers of Education.
One Sacred Closing Rite.
Inside we move through:
Bone — Foundation & System Literacy
• Professional identity & ethical scope
• Trauma-informed, nervous-system aware care
• Hospital hierarchy & chain of command
• Advocacy strategy without chaos
• Policy literacy & power dynamics
You will understand the system before you try to challenge it.
Velvet — Somatics & Embodied Authority
• The hormonal blueprint of labor
• Variations of normal
• The birth field & room tone
• Embodied consent
• Touch as language
• Somatic regulation for doulas
You will learn to regulate your body while holding someone else’s.
Available Plans
Your Questions, Answered
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Yes. Upon completion of the live immersion, you will receive a Velvet & Bone Certificate of Completion.
Velvet & Bone is an independent training and apprenticeship pathway. We prioritize depth, embodiment, and real-world preparation over minimum-hour industry standards.
There is no single governing body for doulas, and the title “certified doula” is not legally regulated. Certification is issued by training programs based on their own standards.
This program certifies you as a doula through our organization. You will graduate with documentation confirming completion of our full professional doula training and apprenticeship, including:
16+ hours of doula-specific training
Childbirth education for doulas
Lactation basics
Required professional readings
Supporting 3 births with evaluations
Our certification reflects completion of a comprehensive training with real birth experience and professional standards of practice.
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You can.
Many trainings are shorter, self-paced, and focus primarily on birth basics.
Velvet & Bone integrates somatic practice, trauma-informed care, relational intelligence, hospital systems navigation, and leadership presence — delivered live and in real time.
This is not the fastest path to a certificate.
It is preparation for authority.
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No.
However, this is not passive learning. Participation, reflection, and presence are required.
Whether you are new or refining your work, you must be ready to engage deeply.
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You may continue into:
The Bone Circle — 6 months of mentorship & business strategy support
or
Apply for The Matriarch Path — private apprenticeship (10 spots only)Velvet & Bone is designed to grow with you.
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All live calls are recorded and added to the Velvet & Bone Vault for replay access.
Live attendance is strongly encouraged, as the power of this container is relational and embodied.
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You will have the Opportunity to download the Velvet & Bone training manual, syllabus, and accompanying written resources in the Velvet & Bone vault. You’ll have access to the video content for a full year from your training start date. -
Insurance coverage for doula services is still expanding and varies by location and payer. This program provides the training and documented birth experience many insurers and state programs require to credential doulas.
To accept insurance, you would need to complete the insurer or state provider enrollment process (applications, credentialing, and contracts), which is an administrative step separate from training
The Architects of Velvet & Bone
Ivy Joeva
Doula, Trauma-Informed Coach | Co-Founder of Velvet & BoneIvy is passionate about facilitating reconnection with embodied intelligence and carries this mission forward from her bloodline. As an eight-year-old, she learned to listen to her baby sister’s heartbeat with her mother’s midwife’s stethoscope.
Ivy served in the birth room in homes, hospitals and birth centers throughout Los Angeles for over a decade. Today she supports women and couples across the United States and abroad, specializing in complex cases involving fertility challenges, perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, pregnancy complications, and loss. Her clientele spans celebrities, creatives, influential leaders and individuals from underserved communities.
A graduate of UC Berkeley and the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, Ivy trained as a doula with renowned midwife Judy Chapman in 2009.
In a rapidly changing field, she’s devoted to initiating the next generation of doulas into modern practice, while rooted in ancient wisdom.
Joni Edelman
Joni attended her first birth in 1992 — beginning a career that now spans more than three decades inside the birth room.
She is a mother of six and a grandmother, bringing lived experience of pregnancy, birth, and mothering that is not theoretical but deeply embodied.
Her professional path has woven through roles as a doula, Labor & Delivery nurse, and now practicing as a Holistic Birth Companion, offering women steady presence across both clinical and community settings.
With firsthand experience inside hospital systems, she understands hierarchy, policy, power dynamics, and the subtle language that shapes outcomes. With equal depth in embodied birth work, she brings somatic intelligence, trauma-informed care, and relational mastery to every room she enters.
Having witnessed the evolution of birth culture across decades, she carries both institutional fluency and sovereign perspective — a rare integration that informs her mentorship.
Velvet & Bone was born from her conviction that birth workers deserve more than minimal training. They deserve preparation worthy of the environments they walk into.
She does not teach theory.
She teaches from rooms she has stood in for over 30 years.
Holistic Birth Companion | Perinatal Systems & Leadership Mentor
Co-Founder of Velvet & Bone