Tika Simone MBA

TIKA is an Academy Award–winning composer, cultural educator, and founder of Iverna Island, where her work bridges sound, emotional literacy, and healing-centered arts practice. As a multidisciplinary artist and facilitator, she specializes in the intersections of creativity, nervous system regulation, and culturally grounded care. Her workshops, intensives, and somatic creative experiences have supported educators, community workers, health practitioners, and arts organizations across North America and the Caribbean.

With a background in vocal composition, narrative scoring, and trauma-informed community programming, TIKA explores how voice, rhythm, and vibration can function as tools for emotional stability and human connection. Her approach honors ancestral knowledge, embodied creativity, and the practical needs of frontline caregivers, especially those working in high-pressure or emotionally charged environments.

TIKA’s work has been featured at international conferences, healing arts festivals, academic residencies, and wellness initiatives. She is the co-composer for the forthcoming documentary Ninety-Two: The Silent Revolt No One Saw Coming and a recipient of major artistic and literary awards, including the Helen Henderson Award for her essay “When Surrender Becomes a Teacher.”

Through Iverna Island, TIKA continues to champion liberatory storytelling, care-centered creative practice, and accessible emotional technology for communities navigating transition, grief, birth, and transformation. Her teachings are rooted in cultural humility, deep listening, and the belief that sound—and the body’s relationship to it—can be a profound source of safety, grounding, and healing.

Session

The Sound of Safety: Using Voice, Vibration & Creative Grounding to Support Labor, Postpartum & Bereavement

Birthwork is emotional, embodied, and deeply relational; and doulas often become the grounding presence families rely on during moments of intensity, uncertainty, joy, and grief. The Sound of Safety introduces trauma-informed, culturally rooted practices using voice, vibration, rhythm, and creative grounding to support clients during labor, postpartum transitions, and bereavement. Drawing from somatic practice, nervous system literacy, and the ancient role of sound in community care, this session offers doulas practical tools for attunement, emotional containment, and restorative presence.

Participants will explore vocal toning, low-frequency grounding, breath-led sound prompts, and gentle rhythmic interventions that help stabilize the nervous system; both for the doula and the family. These techniques are accessible, evidence-informed, and adaptable across cultures and birth settings.

Doulas will leave with techniques they can immediately integrate into their practice to support regulation, trust-building, and compassionate care.