Meet Clare, doula and therapist

Clare Donofrio, MPH, LCSW-C, PMH-C (she/her) is a licensed clinical social worker and certified perinatal mental health specialist practicing in Maryland. Clare believes that comprehensive mental health support should be the standard of care for all birthing people and parents. While pregnancy and parenting can be full of joy and delight, it also includes monumental losses and challenges.

Whether you’re healing from a traumatic pregnancy or birth, making sense of anxiety and depression symptoms, navigating challenging partnership dynamics, or working to be a more present and gentle parent, Clare’s goal is to help you follow your intuition to feel confident and connected on your family building journey.

Clare practices from the theoretical framework of reproductive justice, believing that all people have the right to have children, to not have children, and to parent children in healthy, safe, and supportive communities.

Clare began supporting pregnant people in 2014 when she trained as a full-spectrum doula. She has supported more than a hundred families through abortion, pregnancy loss, TFMR, and birth, and co-founded the Baltimore Doula Project, a grassroots organization that works to provide free and low-cost full spectrum doula care to pregnant people in the Baltimore area.

While practicing as a doula, Clare received her Master’s of Social Work and Master’s of Public Health from the University of Maryland Baltimore. She focused on clinical interventions for women, children, and families, and completed a capstone project related to reproductive health education for women and girls involved in the criminal justice system.

For the past four years, Clare has practiced clinical social work with parents and young children in Baltimore, providing support around depression, anxiety, grief and loss, and childhood trauma. Clare has developed a skill set for helping parents break intergenerational patterns and work to feel more connected to themselves in order to better connect with their children. Clare is trained in Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT) and has experience as a parent coach for children exhibiting challenging behaviors. She is certified as a perinatal mental health specialist with Postpartum Support International.

If you’re interested in therapy, or want to learn more about what kind of support may be available to you, send Clare an email at claredonofriolcswc@gmail.com