The Alaska Native Birthworkers Community seeks proposals to provide Indigenous Birth Helper services in Anchorage. Click HERE to read the RFP and instructions to apply.

Current Team Members

Abra Nungasuk Patkotak, Iñupiaq

Abra Nungasuk Patkotak is Iñupiaq from Utqiagvik, Alaska. Abra is the granddaughter of Wesley & Ardis Pishl and Simeon Nasuk & Susan Nungasuk Patkotak and the daughter of Glen & Teresa Stolte and Simeon Qaġmak Patkotak, Jr. She has held many roles, including managing the Pre-maternal home for Utqiagvik and the surrounding North Slope communities. She has also worked as a 911 dispatcher in the Arctic. Abra currently resides in Dgheyey Kaq’, also known as Anchorage, on Dena’ina land. She is a Birthworker, Doula and co-founder of the Alaska Native Birthworkers Community, a role through which she advances reproductive justice while serving Indigenous birthing people. Abra serves as a Core Committee Member with the State of Alaska Maternal Child Death Review. In this role, she brings knowledge of Alaska Native culture as well as lived experience with rural healthcare and rural emergency response systems.

Dr. Charlene Aqpik Apok, Iñupiaq, She/They

Aqpik is Iñupiaq, her family is from White Mountain and Golovin, AK. She is mother to Evan Lukluan. Aqpik has served in many spaces as an advocate for Indigenous womxn, sovereignty, gender justice and rights to health and wellbeing. She is a lifelong learner in both her cultural traditions and decolonizing academia. She earned her B.A in American Ethnic Studies with a minor in Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies, an M.A in Alaska Native Studies and Rural Development, and received her PhD in Indigenous Studies. Charlene gratefully resides in Anchorage on the territories of the Dena'ina peoples. Here she has taught the Iñupiaq language and is part of Kingikmuit dance group with her son son. She is a co-founder of the Alaska Native Birthworkers Community.

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Dalecia Young, Iñupiaq

Dalecia is Inupiaq & Black and was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, where she is also raising her children. She founded Due North Support Services in 2018, where her mission is to help people find and follow their chosen paths through emotional, physical, and continuous support for a full spectrum of reproductive health care options across a range of experiences from periods to parenthood. "When I first learned I was pregnant I experienced firsthand the strength and power found in learning and understanding my own body, exercising my autonomy, and advocating for my own freedom, my options, reproductive and otherwise. In addition to the courses, workshops, conferences, formal training, and avid independent study, I am continuously informed by my empathy and intuition." She is working with ANBC as an Indigenous Birth Helper.

Helena Jacobs, Koyukon Athabascan

Helena Benozaadleyo Jacobs (Koyukon Athabascan) is the daughter of Dee Olin and David Hoffman, and the granddaughter of the late Lillian and Fred Olin, the late Lorraine and John Honea, and the late Helen and George Hoffman. Born in Fairbanks with ancestral ties to Ruby and Kokrines, and raised throughout 7 different communities in Alaska, she now lives and works in Anchorage on Dena'ina land where she and her husband are raising their children. She has completed the Full Spectrum Indigenous Doula training, Indigenous Childbirth Educator training, Indigenous Breastfeeding Counselor training, Spinning Babies workshop and has learned from the many families she has supported over the last 17 years as a birth helper. She is a cofounder of the Alaska Native Birthworkers Community.

Katrina Leary, Yup'ik and Athabascan

Born and raised along the Kuskokwim River, Katrina Leary is Yup'ik and Athabaskan from Bethel and Napaimute, Alaska. Katrina is named after the late Katrina Aloysius of Upper Kalskag, and currently resides in Anchorage with her husband and daughter, Charlie. Birthwork strongly called to Katrina after experiencing the struggles of growing and birthing her own daughter. Katrina has a passion to apply her cultural upbringing and knowledge to her role as a parent and along her journey, became inspired by helping other women to do the same. In October of 2022, Katrina completed the Indigenous Childbirth Educator Training.

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Lindsey Earnest, Chippewa

Lindsey Earnest was born and raised in Bagley Minnesota. She is an enrolled descendant of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe from the White Earth Reservation Mississippi Band. She is a mom of three daughters, Kalista (6), Madison (4), and Harper (2). Through her work as an operational leader at Southcentral Foundation she has found a passion for supporting families through their birthing and post-partum journeys. As a Indigenous Doula, Lindsey is able to provide emotional, spiritual, and physical support during and after birth.

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Laura Young, Iñupiaq

Laura Young is of Iñupiaq descent, born on an Apache Indian Reservation and raised in Glennallen and Dillingham. Laura’s maternal grandmother was originally from White Mountain, Fish River Tribe. Laura is a trained Doula, has a B.S. in Midwifery and has a passion for helping families achieve their birth desires and goals. She believes it is a privilege to walk alongside families in one of life’s most memorable times and is thankful for the opportunity and honor to serve her community in this way.

Margaret Olin Hoffman David, Koyukon Athabascan

Margaret Olin Hoffman David was born and raised in rural Alaska. She grew up spending summers at her grandparent’s fish camp on the Yukon River and is rooted by her Koyukon Athabascan culture. Through 15 years of working in tribal and rural community health promotion and program management, birthing her family, volunteering as a doula, and healing through Native ways of knowing, she realized her call to midwifery. The potential to heal ourselves, and our ancestors, during the transformation of childbirth is why she has chosen to dedicate her life’s work to midwifery. Through her work as a Certified Nurse Midwife she hopes to expand perinatal community health programs and birthing options for rural Alaska Native women by remembering traditional practices and supporting more pathways for Indigenous birth workers. She is a founding member of the National Indigenous Midwifery Alliance and the Alaska Native Birthworkers Community. She lives on Dena'ina land in Anchorage, AK with her partner and 4 children, and is a midwife at the Alaska Native Medical Center.

Shawna Whaley, Suqpiaq

Shawna is Suqpiaq of the Chugach region. Her family is from Nuuciq and Chenega Bay in the Prince William Sound. She spent her childhood on the waters of Ketchikan and Cordova, moving to the Dena’ina lands of Anchorage as a teenager where she currently lives with her husband and children. She is a proud mother of three and an auntie to many. Shawna has been a foster parent, culture bearer, fish and wildlife protector, community educator and birth helper for many years. With a background in Yoga and dance, she also enjoys working intuitively with the rhythm of each individual body and inspiring natural, joyful movement throughout pregnancy, childbirth and beyond. Shawna says, “Birthwork is a meaningful tradition, particularly for Native people. We can experience birth as a dance, a ceremony, a labor of love. It’s an honor to walk one another through these thresholds. When we uphold traditional ways of caring for each other, we are nurturing our own selves with a sense of cultural wellbeing and understanding.” She is thrilled to work with Native families and with the many gifted birth keepers of ANBC. Quyanaa