Crip Doula
Offering Care, Divergently
This year I’ve had some beautiful opportunities to share my research and practice. One thing that has become clearer to me is that one of the roles I hold naturally is the role of a Crip Doula.
A crip doula walks alongside disabled people through the thresholds of life; illness, change, birth, grief, and death, offering care, advocacy, and accompaniment rooted in disability justice and crip care. Unlike birth or death doulas, there is currently no formal training for crip doulas. My practice is shaped by disability justice and the work of activists such as Stacey Park Milbern, who coined the term, and Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu. Crip doula work grows from community care; the ways disabled people have long supported one another in navigating a world not built with our bodies and minds in mind. It recognises that becoming disabled, living with disability, or moving through illness can be a profound life transition, one that deserves care, time, and companionship.
Many of the people who come to see me are seeking art therapy, mentoring or coaching but often they are looking for something more: a mix of advocacy, environmental care, expressive support, creativity, crafting, walking practice, gentle attentiveness, and soft, relational care. Spaces where grief, joy, and memory can coexist; where bodies, minds, and hearts are truly seen, heard, and held.
I also offer gentle meanderings in parks; exploring the power of feet, wheels or skin on nature, neurodivergent, disabled, and autistic sensory care, light, and slow movement. Walking practice becomes another form of care: environmental, embodied, relational, and restorative.
In my practice, care doesn’t follow a single model. Together we might:
• make space to talk and be witnessed
• think through access needs and boundaries
• share strategies for navigating inaccessible systems
• explore rest, pacing, and environmental care
• move gently through experiences of illness, grief, birth, death or change
• connect with nature through walking and sensory attentiveness
Sessions take place online or in person (in parks). This work isn’t about fixing or curing. It’s about accompaniment, advocacy, and tending the journey; much like tending a garden, with patience, attention, and care.
“When I was very ill, there were things I couldn’t talk about with anyone else. Elinor created a space where I felt safe enough to speak honestly about what I was going through. Her care, patience, and deep listening helped me feel less alone during one of the hardest periods of my life.”
Client received a mixture of Crip Doula care, Eco and Art psychotherapy
“Elinor supported my mother through the final stages of her life with extraordinary care and presence. My mother had a lifelong calling to become a priest and was studying theology to pursue that path, but she died before she could complete her training. In that time, Elinor’s presence held our family through grief with deep compassion and dignity. Her work carries a profound understanding of care and the sacredness of dying.”
—Client’s Son