Angela M. “Annie” Hill, AR-CCBD
Program Director | Senior Instructor | Learn To Doula Village
Angela M. “Annie” Hill is the Program Director and Senior Instructor for Learn To Doula Village, where she teaches birth and postpartum doula training, childbirth education foundations, professional scope, documentation, and the Maternal Sovereignty Method™.
Annie is an Arkansas Certified Community-Based Doula, ADH Certification/License #005, and brings more than four decades of experience in birthwork, family support, childbirth education, mentoring, and doula training. Her professional background includes work as a birth doula, postpartum doula, birth and bereavement doula, childbirth educator, lactation mentor, newborn specialist, end-of-life companion, and retired traditional midwife.
Formerly the Head of the Madriella Advisory Board, Annie helped oversee curriculum revision for Madriella’s 2017 relaunch and served as one of the primary student-facing leaders of the organization for nearly six years. She now brings that depth of curriculum experience into a modern doula training program designed for today’s birthworkers, including students preparing for community-based doula work, Arkansas doula certification pathways, Medicaid readiness, insurance documentation, and professional practice.
Annie’s teaching is rooted in the belief that pregnant, birthing, and postpartum people remain the primary decision-makers in their own care. Through the Maternal Sovereignty Method™, she teaches doulas to support client autonomy, informed decision-making, emotional safety, nervous system regulation, and respectful collaboration with families and care teams.
Her work emphasizes evidence-informed care, trauma-informed support, cultural humility, professional boundaries, and practical logistics. She believes that strong doulas need both compassion and competence, and that documentation, communication, scope clarity, and ethical practice are part of how doulas create safety and trust.
Annie is based in Arkansas and serves Central and North Central Arkansas through her professional doula practice, while developing doula education that can support students beyond one state.
Advisory Council
Our Advisory Council brings together experienced birthworkers and teachers who help keep Learn To Doula Village grounded in practical skill, ethical scope, client autonomy, and the belief that women, babies, and families deserve the level of care that fits their actual needs.
Gail Hart
Traditional Midwife | Midwifery Educator | Advisory Council Member
Gail Hart is a traditional midwife, teacher, author, and respected elder in the midwifery community. She graduated from a midwifery training program as a Certified Practical Midwife in 1977 and has held certifications through the Oregon Midwifery Council and as a Licensed Direct-Entry Midwife in Oregon. Her role with Learn To Doula Village is advisory and educational, honoring decades of hands-on birth experience, teaching, and mentorship.
Gail is known for bringing traditional midwifery understanding together with careful attention to evidence, physiology, and the appropriate use of medical care. Her teaching asks birthworkers to respect normal physiologic birth while also recognizing when a family needs consultation, transfer, or another level of care. That balance of trust, discernment, and humility is part of why she is held in such high respect by generations of midwives and students.
Across many years of speaking and teaching in the United States and internationally, Gail has taught midwives and birthworkers through conferences, workshops, enrichment seminars, online classes, and programs including Ancient Art Midwifery and Indie Birth. She is the author of Research Updates for Midwives and has written for Midwifery Today and Pathways to Family Wellness on topics that help birthworkers think more clearly about evidence, physiology, and the long view of care.
Bev Ann Warner
Instructor | Advisory Council Member | Family Support and Parenting Education Specialist
Bev Ann Warner joins Learn To Doula Village with an established professional background in birth and postpartum doula support, childbirth education, peer support, recovery coaching, parent education, and grief-informed care. Her experience includes more than 30 years of birth support, nearly three decades of postpartum support, and professional training in bereavement support, birth planning, supporting survivors during birth, and family-centered care.
At Learn To Doula Village, Bev serves as an instructor and Advisory Council member, contributing her existing experience and professional perspective to the development of community-based doula education and student support.