Who is Charlotte Henderson?

Charlotte Henderson is a perinatal safeguarding advocate, birth doula and professional trainer. Known as The Dependency Doula, she works at the intersection of maternity, addiction recovery and safeguarding — bringing lived experience and professional expertise to support women and families navigating systems that too often fail them.

Charlotte Henderson is a perinatal safeguarding advocate, birth doula and educator with lived experience of addiction, recovery and the systems that claim to protect women and families.

Charlotte talks about:

In this episode, Charlotte shares her personal story — navigating the maternity and recovery systems during her first pregnancy with little support and significant multi-agency collusion working against her, and then, three years into her recovery, being reported by the NHS after her second birth for exercising her legal right not to engage them — while her daughter lay critically ill in intensive care as a result of their negligence.

She now uses that experience alongside her professional expertise to help other women and families navigate the medical and safeguarding systems where either “too much, too soon” or “too little, too late” seems to be the norm.

• How multi-agency collusion operates in maternity and safeguarding — and what it looks like from the inside
• The legal rights women have that professionals routinely fail to disclose and how they translate into real outcomes
• How to document, communicate and self-advocate when the system is working against you
• Why “too much, too soon” and “too little, too late” are two sides of the same systemic failure
• What recovery through motherhood could look like

Contact Charlotte –

Instagram: @thedependencydoula

Facebook: facebook.com/TheDependencyDoula (I don’t have many followers on here yet, but it’s worth adding)

Website: thedependencydoula.com (still under construction,but will be ready well in time for the podcast)

The Conduit — professional training for birth workers, launching September 2026 https://1drv.ms/b/c/6912fcd0fc4395ea/IQAy-C0ADvNSTLYZs5IO19XbAf6doFFyz_DWoak1re4X3k0

Telegram: https://t.me/TheDependencyDoulaChannel (again, haven’t used it much, but useful for the freedom movement crowd)

To book a free consultation just email me: [email protected]

*Join us live on the next podcast here, talk to your favourite guests https://painfreedom.co.uk/the-positive-future-for-health-podcast/

Talks are hosted by Althea Finch at The PainFree Method, how to be pain free by tuning into you. Find out more here: https://painfreedom.co.uk

To apply to give an interview, talk or workshop, email me here at [email protected]

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