BIRTH STORY SPECIALIST-APPRENTICESHIP
Mentored by Pam England, Birth Story Magician
May to August, 2025
Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens. -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Overview of the 16- Week Apprenticeship
The 16-week birth story specialist apprenticeship is for dedicated students who have successfully completed "Open Your Ear" or the 14-week birth story listening course. This is an advanced course for students who aim to become certified. It is a course that prepares birth-related professionals to offer private Birth Story Medicine sessions, effective small groups Birth Story Medicine sessions to clients.
16 Weeks to Fill Up Your Birth Story Medicine Cabinet
Ancient and modern ways of knowing
Birth Art & Archetypes
Philosophy, Poetry
Erickson, Jung, Insoo, Frankl
Myths, Metaphors & Mandalas
Methods of Learning
APPRENTICESHIP means learning by watching an experienced practitioner and hands-on experience with mentoring and supervision, rather than learning theory and trying it out on your own.
Practice Makes the Master
To truly understand and embody this Work, an Apprentice must do more than take notes in class. She must first experience the Process in a session with Pam or Nicole, then recruit volunteer storytellers to practice new techniques and lead weekly birth story sessions. While theories and techniques are exciting, real Learning comes when the student dares to wobble or fail by trying new things in class and while leading live sessions. Birth story transformation requires intelligence, intuition, focus, and creativity. Leading sessions is the centerpiece of this apprenticeship, and it's a commitment that each apprentice must honor.
STUDY ON YOUR OWN through readings, research, and videos. Practice each new step in weekly sessions with storytellers and peers. During weekly live consultations on Zoom, receive constructive critique of sessions (what worked, what didn’t, and why); also, new techniques, demonstration, return demonstrations, and role-playing with a birth story Magician.
Open Your Ear-Apprenticeship Cannot Be Audited
The BIRTH STORY MEDICINE’s Process™ cannot be fully understood through taking notes in class. This 28-week Apprenticeship is experiential learning. The success of one and all apprentices depends on keeping an agreement to lead weekly sessions and show up to weekly consultations prepared and ready to practice. Rather than vaguely remembering or imitating the Process, the intention is to embody a new language, philosophy, map, and skills so they become your seeing, hearing, and response in a session.
Each week, our coterie of apprentices gather to listen to and learn from various sessions, either parts of or complete sessions led by other students or birth story listeners. Within the group, the volume and variety in sessions, styles, and choice of "medicine" accelerate the growth of every birth story apprentice.
Each apprentice is offered a unique opportunity for personal and professional growth through six personal mentoring sessions with Pam. These sessions are designed to provide individualized guidance and support, fostering the apprentices' personal and professional development.
Theories and techniques are informative and exciting, but real learning comes when you dare to wobble or fail by trying new things and leading live sessions. To understand and embody this Work, you cannot just take notes in class. You must experience the Process yourself, then lead weekly birth story sessions with parents and birth people.
Upon completing your apprenticeship, what you will have learned in theory and application, and about yourself, exceeds what can be listed here. But here are a few of the skills you will cultivate by the end of this course. You will be able to:
You will learn about sessions for:
- Fathers or partners
- Couples
- Witnesses (moral injury
- Follow up sessions
- Moms pregnant again after a difficult birth; changING the story they are bringing to birth
- Small groups
- PTSD, differentiating birth shock and conflict from ptsd
- Recognizing postpartum depression and mood disorders
Tuition for 16 weeks: $2060. (includes modules, homework, weekly live 3-hour consultation/supervision, and six private one-hour consultations for practice and mentorship.
Cancellation & Refund Policy
If you notify of cancellation for “Open Your Ear” in writing: Two weeks before the course begins, you will be given a full refund minus a $200 admin and application process fee. With cancellation in writing two weeks before the Apprenticeship begins, tuition refunded minus a $500.00 admin fee. Withdrawal one week before either course begins, a 50% refund.
Once either portion of the course commences, tuition will not be refunded. If you decide to drop out for any reason, or if you are dropped for failing to keep your agreements as an apprentice, there are no tuition refunds.
If for any reason Birth Story Medicine or your Tutor must cancel the course before it begins, you will receive a full refund; if such cancellation occurs during the course, you may be given an opportunity to complete the course with another tutor or withdraw. If you choose to withdraw, your refund will be prorated.
Our Mission & Vision
It is BIRTH STORY MEDICINE’s vision to establish a collective awareness of the childbearing year as a journey of initiation and the necessity of personal rituals of preparation and return. One of those emerging rituals are prenatal and postpartum sessions with a “birth story specialist” to ensure parents complete their stories and thus their initiation.
Upon successful completion of the Apprenticeship,
You will earn a Certificate of Completion. Those who achieve a beginners level of mastery will also be Certified as a Birth Story Specialist, qualified to promote yourself as a Birth Story Specialist trained at the Birth Story Medicine Birth Story School.
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