Become a Democracy Doula!
For graduates of the Proving Democracy course, there is an exciting opportunity. Districts ‘giving birth’ to a democracy for the first time are going to need a helping hand. We will be hooking them up. Nascent DcLs can choose and replace their doulas at any time, and they don’t have to use one at all. But we highly recommend it, and our certified doulas will be well-qualified.
Pre-requisite: the NOTAFLOF, ten-week course, Proving Democracy: Power, Institutions, and the Search for Self-Government
Participants must apply and be accepted. Completion of the workshop does not guarantee certification.
We could call them ‘organizers,’ ‘facilitators,’ or ‘coordinators…’ but that would be boring! Bringing a bouncing, baby DcL into the world will be a fraught process for the voters of a district. There will be a lot of ‘Why is this happening? Is this normal?’ In person relationships are part of the structure of Straight-Up, and this is a great place for exactly that.
And, yes, guys, you can be a Democracy Doula! Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t!
Democracy Doula Training Weekend
Preliminary Program Outline—Location TBD
Friday — Arrival and Orientation
4:00–6:00 PM — Arrival and Check-In
Settle in, meet the other participants, and get oriented to the venue. Coffee and light refreshments available.
6:00–7:00 PM — Dinner
7:00–7:30 PM — Welcome: What a Democracy Doula Is For
An introduction to the weekend and to the distinctive role of the Democracy Doula: helping a Directly-connected Legislature come into existence without becoming its leader, manager, political educator, or permanent guardian. The session establishes the central distinction between protecting the architecture and protecting outcomes.
7:30–9:30 PM — Welcome Party / Reception
An informal evening for participants and faculty to meet one another before the intensive work begins.
Saturday — Helping a Give Birth to a Democracy
7:30–8:30 AM — Breakfast
8:30–9:00 AM — Morning Gathering
9:00–10:00 AM — Lecture
From First Signup to Live Legislature: The Development of a DcL
A practical overview of the stages through which a DcL develops. Participants examine what normally happens at each stage, what the Claim Your Seat software makes possible as the structure grows, where predictable bottlenecks occur, and what a Doula should—and should not—be doing along the way.
The goal is for a Doula to be able to answer three questions confidently:
Where are we in the process? What happens next? Is what we're seeing normal?
10:00–10:15 AM — Break
10:15–11:30 AM — Small-Group Workshop
Is This Normal?
Small groups work through situations drawn from developing DcLs: slow growth, sudden growth, disconnected participants, disagreements, competing organizers, frustrated volunteers, factions, technical problems, and other apparent signs that something may be going wrong.
The emphasis is diagnosis: distinguishing ordinary democratic messiness from a genuine problem requiring attention.
11:30 AM–12:15 PM — Plenary
What Did You Diagnose?
Groups compare their judgments and discuss why apparently similar situations may call for very different Doula responses.
12:15–1:30 PM — Lunch
1:30–2:15 PM — Guest Conversation
Authority Without Command
A conversation about exercising expertise without converting expertise into control. The session considers how trusted advisers, teachers, organizers, facilitators, and other helping professionals can unintentionally become decision-makers—and what Democracy Doulas must do differently.
2:15–2:30 PM — Break
2:30–3:45 PM — Small-Group Workshop
The Capture Lab
A workshop devoted to one of the greatest dangers in DcL formation: founder capture and premature institution-building.
Participants encounter steering committees, unofficial leaders, temporary officers, organizing councils, mailing-list gatekeepers, dominant social groups, ideological founders, beloved charismatic personalities, and other arrangements that may begin innocently but gradually acquire power.
The workshop also considers cultural capture: situations in which nobody possesses formal authority but early adopters nevertheless come to define what the DcL supposedly stands for.
3:45–4:00 PM — Break**
4:00–5:00 PM — Plenary
Helping Without Taking Over
Groups report back on the Capture Lab and compare possible interventions. The discussion focuses on the Doula's central professional boundary: when to act, when to warn, when to explain, and when to let participants work things out for themselves.
5:00–6:00 PM — Free Time
6:00–7:30 PM — Dinner
7:30–8:30 PM — Saturday Keynote
Deliver the Baby. Don't Raise It.
A broader reflection on democratic sovereignty and the purpose of the Doula Program.
The Doula is not there to make the emerging DcL wise, harmonious, moderate, progressive, conservative, civil, communitarian, compassionate, efficient, or agreeable. The Doula helps establish a system in which the voters themselves remain capable of deciding what their legislature will become.
The keynote places the practical work of the weekend in that larger democratic context.
8:30 PM onward — Social Evening
Sunday — Working With Actual Human Beings
7:30–8:30 AM — Breakfast
8:30–9:00 AM — Morning Gathering
9:00–9:45 AM — Lecture
Conflict Is Not a Birth Defect
A practical examination of disagreement, factions, ideological clustering, difficult personalities, hostility, and anxiety inside a developing DcL. Participants consider the difference between conflict that merely makes people uncomfortable and conduct that actually interferes with democratic rights or system integrity. The session also addresses one of the hardest Doula disciplines: working fairly with people whose politics, conduct, worldview, or personality the Doula personally dislikes.
9:45–10:00 AM — Break
10:00–11:15 AM — Small-Group Workshop
What Do You Do Now?
Participants confront situations in which the correct Doula response is deliberately ambiguous.
A district wants consensus before proceeding. A faction feels unwelcome. Someone asks the Doula what the district ought to decide. A participant claims another group is dangerous. Recruitment has produced a politically skewed early membership. Someone wants the Doula to chair a meeting. A procedural dispute becomes personal.
The emphasis is on judgment, restraint, explanation, and maintaining political neutrality without becoming neutral about the architecture itself.
11:15 AM–12:00 PM — Plenary
Intervene, Explain, Escalate—or Leave It Alone?
Groups compare responses and develop a shared vocabulary for distinguishing:
ordinary democratic conflict;
situations requiring clarification;
developing problems that deserve attention;
genuine threats to rights or system integrity;
matters that belong entirely to the voters.
12:00–1:00 PM — Lunch
1:00–2:30 PM — Extended Practicum
The District in Labor
The culminating workshop of the weekend.
Participants work through an extended developing-DcL scenario in which multiple problems, personalities, technical questions, institutional pressures, recruitment issues, and political conflicts occur at once.
The exercise draws together the weekend's major competencies:
knowing the developmental process, holding boundaries, handling conflict and anxiety, detecting capture, troubleshooting problems, protecting confidentiality and trust, knowing when to escalate, and continually returning authority to the participants.
The objective is not to produce a perfect district.
The objective is to help the district become capable of governing itself.
2:30–2:45 PM — Break
2:45–3:45 PM — Final Plenary
What Will You Do When They Start Depending on You?
A final discussion about one of the less obvious dangers of successful Doula work: becoming indispensable.
Participants consider how to answer questions without becoming the source of every answer, how to transfer knowledge to participants, how to resist becoming an unofficial district leader, and how to recognize when a DcL is ready to function without continuing Doula involvement.
3:45–4:15 PM — Closing
Leaving the Nursery
The weekend concludes with the ethics and responsibilities of the certified Democracy Doula: confidentiality, conflicts of interest, political activity, representation of DSUp and CRCL, appropriate escalation of serious problems, and the eventual end of the Doula relationship.
Participants are briefed on the individual post-workshop debrief and certification process.
4:15 PM — Formal Program Ends
4:15–5:00 PM — Coffee, Informal Goodbyes, and Departure
During the Following Week
Individual Certification Debrief
Each participant meets online with a member of the Democracy Doula Program for an individual conversation about the weekend.
The debrief provides an opportunity to revisit difficult cases, discuss the participant's own reactions and judgment, clarify questions, and consider whether the participant is ready to assume the responsibilities of a certified Democracy Doula.
Completion of the workshop does not automatically confer certification.
Certification is awarded after the individual debrief.