Kristen Turtle

Treasurer

Kristen is a registered nurse who provides abortion care. She is passionate about ensuring people have accessible and compassionate abortion care and contraception. She is an instructor in the Interprofessional Care of Surgical and Medical Abortion Patients course at Dalhousie University.

Stevie Fort

Chebucto Family Centre Liaison

Stevie Fort, BA, is a fat liberationist, prison abolitionist, and birth doula. Her journey to birth work started with the Volunteer Doula Program and has brought her to the full-time position as the Prenatal and Postnatal Educator at Chebucto Family Centre. She has been a member of Wellness Within for over 5 years and looks forward to coordinating impactful group work for the communities we serve.

Sara Tessier

Inreach/Outreach Director

Sara A. Tessier is a social justice advocate with lived experience who has spent the last seven years working with and on behalf of some of the most marginalized, victimized, criminalized, and institutionalized men, women and youth in Canada. She currently works as the Impact Manager- Formerly Incarcerated Persons with the Northpine Foundation. She worked as a Peer Mentor with the Coverdale Courtwork Society and Outreach Worker with the Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland. She has worked on the JEC project with John Howard, Elizabeth Fry, Mainland Nova Scotia, and Coverdale Courtwork Society in supporting people exiting provincial jail during the Covid-19 pandemic. She is an advisor for the African Nova Scotian Affairs Mobilizing Partnership Program, a committee member for YWCA's Trafficking & Exploitation Services System LGBTQ+ cultural group, and Co-chair- of the Scientific Advisory Committee – WW. She sits on the CAEFS Lived Experience Committee. Sara sits on the Board of Directors for the 7th Step Society of NS and Dalhousie Legal Aid Society. Sara will be attending law school at Dalhousie University shortly.

Lauren Matheson

Director of Doula Training and Special Projects

Lauren Matheson, BA, BSW, is the Community Development and Outreach Coordinator for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Nova Scotia Office. They are a graduate of the Dalhousie School of Social Work and hold a Bachelor of Arts in medical Anthropology from McGill University. Lauren has a background in family home support services, perinatal health research, community birth support, and immigration integration research.

Grisha Cowal

Membership Coordinator

Grisha is a fourth-year Bachelor of Arts student completing a combined major in sociology and gerontology with a minor in women’s studies at Mount Saint Vincent University. Grisha is a client support worker at two Halifax shelters for women and gender-diverse individuals. She is a feminist with a special interest in prison abolition, housing, and reproductive justice.

Clare Heggie

Research Coordinator

Clare Heggie is a health researcher and health promoter, currently working as a health promotion specialist at IWK Health. She has a MA in Health Promotion from Dalhousie University and has been a volunteer doula for three years.

Juniper Littlefield

Merch Manager, Communication & Campaigns Coordinator

Juniper is a licensed urban planner living and working in Halifax. She has a Bachelor of Community Design from Dalhousie University and is interested in how careful and empathetic policies and practices can shape communities.

Julia Hutt

Artist

Julia Hutt is a self-taught multi-disciplinary artist residing in K’jipuktuk. Inspired by her own experience with pregnancy, birthing and baby-raising, Julia works with both traditional and digital illustration to create anecdotal scenes that portray snapshots of early parenthood. Common themes in her work include lactation, body positivity, and birthing people’s body changes. This work aims to challenge the capitalist devaluation of child-rearing work and traditionally gendered work such as housework and feeding kids.

Julia regularly does commissioned portrait work for new mothers and families. Her ongoing collaborations include album artwork for local singer Aquakultre and promotional portraits for artist Elise Peterson’s podcast ‘Talk Cool Moms’ based in Brooklyn NYC. In 2019, Julia was the artist in residence for Wellness Within’s conference “Confronting the Carceral State: Autonomy, Community, and Liberation”. Since then, she has produced work with Wellness Within and Martha Paynter to raise awareness about reproductive justice in the Canadian prison system.

Jahtaya Skeete

2023 Junior Artist in Residence

Jahtaya Skeete is the owner of Taya Ties, a tie-dye apparel company based in Halifax. Her passion for tie-dyeing began with making clothes for herself for fun during the pandemic lockdown. Interest grew on social media which led to her launching Taya Ties officially at the North End Business Association's Taking BLK Gottingen Market in September 2020. With the support of her community and her family, Taya Ties quickly grew and enjoys giving back to the community. Her proudest accomplishments include being nominated for new business of the year through the Halifax Chamber of Commerce 2021 and 2022 and teaching tie-dye classes to children across HRM in partnership with Black Business Initiative and St. George's Youthnet. Jahtaya's advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is to "just do it and not wait to perfect it". You can find Taya on Instagram @taya.ties

Lisa Bland

Lisa Bland is a Black woman hailing from the historic black community of Five Mile Plains, Nova Scotia. She is an RN, and IBCLC (lapsed). She has over 12 years’ experience in maternal-newborn care, gynecology, breast health, trans health, elder care, and as a nurse educator. Her focus on diversity, equity, and social justice has led to an internship with the Sojourner Truth Leadership Circle (Auburn Seminary). Mother of 2 children, 27 chickens, and a cat, Lisa has an interest in food security and self-sustainability.

Lindsay McVicar

Operations Lead

Lindsay McVicar, MAd.Ed. is an organizational change management professional with a background in adult education, research, project management, and public service leadership.  She supports Wellness Within operations and project implementations.   

Hilary Marentette

Nova Institution for Women Doula Co-Coordinator

Hilary created and established the first Volunteer Doula Program in Atlantic Canada at the Chebucto Family Centre in 1996. She gained the support of the IWK Health Centre and Public Health and also developed connections with several agencies who provide services to marginalized communities. This allowed the program to support a wide variety of families have a more positive birth experience. In addition to supporting many birthing families, she has trained hundreds of doulas. Since her retirement, Hilary has continued to volunteer as a doula.

Danielle LeBlanc

Abortion Coordinator

Danielle LeBlanc (she/her) is a registered nurse working in abortion and reproductive health care in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Aside from her clinical work, she co-created and co-facilitates an interprofessional health education course on abortion care and contraception for undergraduate health profession students at Dalhousie University, provides educational workshops in the community through Wellness Within, and is involved in abortion research. She is currently working towards a master’s degree in nursing (Nurse Practitioner) at Dalhousie University.

Aishwarya Heran

Reproductive Justice Intern

Aishwarya Heran is a second-year BSc student and Loran Scholar at McGill University from Vancouver, BC. She is interested in the intersections of social advocacy and medicine, specifically reproductive rights and justice. Aishwarya is involved in many equity-based initiatives and hopes to work towards positive change in her community.

Jordan Johnson

2023 Artist in Residence

Jordan Johnson is a 27 year old multidisciplinary artist from Fredericton, New Brunswick. She is new to the art community here in Halifax but has had a paintbrush in hand for as long as she can remember. Her art is a direct representation of her internal and external influences such as music, fellow black artists and nature. With Jordan’s bright and soulful colour palettes, her use of texture and movement take you on a visual journey across the canvas. All of her pieces derive from an initial in-the-moment feeling; but, she really encourages people to interpret and resonate with her art however they choose and to  feel a part of the piece they are viewing. Jordan wants to inspire others to tap into their full creative potentials in whatever form that may look like to them. You can find Jordan’s paintings on Instagram @supportyourlocaljordan

Clark MacIntosh

Queer Doula Coordinator

Clark MacIntosh, BSc, BSW, is the Finance and Resource Centre Coordinator for the Nova Scotia Public Interest Research Group. They are a graduate of the Dalhousie School of Social Work, where they focused on anti-oppressive, queer-centred practice. As a disabled, non-binary parent of two, Clark is an advocate for accessible, equitable policy design who has consulted with non-profit groups across the province.

Grace Szucs

Website Developer, Comms

With 10+ years of experience in administration, communications, event planning, and community development, Grace is always seeking to learn new skills and make connections between people, resources, and issues to push organizations and communities forward.

Emily Peter-Paul

Doula Coordinator for Paqtnkek First Nation

With funding from the Canadian Women's Foundation, Emily is the coordinator for Indigenous-led doula practice initiatives at Paqtnkek First Nation Health Centre. Emily is the Health Centre nurse and a Master's of Adult Education student at STFX

Wanda Cox

Nova Institution for Women Doula Co-Coordinator

Wanda Cox is Wellness Within’s lead doula trainer and Nova Institution for Women Doula Co-Coordinator. She trained as a birth doula in 1999 and has been expanding the ways she serves families ever since, including completing training/ certification as a Lamaze Childbirth Educator, Infant Massage Instructor, Postpartum Doula, Lactation Educator, Evidence Based Birth® Instructor and she is a DONA Approved Birth Doula trainer. She has been a long time volunteer with the Volunteer Doula Program in Halifax and has worked with community groups and family resource centres across NS to enhance services to families.

Ashley Hilton

Pro-Bono Student

Ashley (she/her) is a second-year law student at the Schulich school of Law.

She came to Halifax after completing her Bachelor of Arts at the University of Toronto where she studied Ethics, Society and Law, Sociocultural Anthropology and Philosophy. While in her undergraduate program, she became very interested in medical anthropology and prison law. This past summer, she worked as a research assistant for Professor Elaine Craig on her Law of Sexual Offences Project, which piqued her interest in Criminal law and the Law of Sexual Offences.

Ashley has always been passionate about access to justice, prisoners’ rights, and the protection of vulnerable people within the Criminal Justice system. After graduating, Ashley hopes to provide culturally safe and sensitive care to people experiencing the Criminal Justice system from all sides.