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Project Name: Healthy Start Initiative-Eliminating Racial/Ethnic Disparities (H49)
Applicant Title: BCFS HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Abstract Text: Project Title: Healthy Start Supplement: Community Based Doulas Applicant Organization Name: BCFS Health and Human Services (BCFS HHS) Address: 1506 Bexar Crossing, San Antonio, Tx. 78232 Project Director Name: Tammy Phillips Contact: xxx-xxx-xxxx x 5184 Email: xxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxx.xxx Funds requested in the application: $125,000 Target Area Designation: Rural/Urban Needs to be addressed: BCFS HHS will focus on retaining doulas within Smith County, Tx, particularly within the targeted zip codes that demonstrate the highest infant mortality rates and poorest maternal outcomes on selected areas of Smith County, Texas that have been identified as being at high risk for health inequities, particularly related to target population’s perinatal health and increased infant mortality. Proposed services: BCFS HHS will use several recruitment approaches to obtain doulas within the Smith County/Tyler, Texas area. We will work within the targeted community to advertise and recruit our new doulas, increasing the opportunity for local known community members to be imbedded in the neighborhoods they will serve. Additionally, we will use our exiting doulas and Advanced Practice Registered Nurse Midwife provider to help recruit current or past mothers that they feel would be beneficial to the program. We will develop a formal agreement from each doula hired stating their intent to provide doula services to HS clients for the specific period of performance of the program. This process will be accomplished by BCFS HHS by developing a doulas program that will provide physical, emotional, and informational support to women enrolled in the Healthy Start Program. Selected candidates will go through a screening process and background check and will be interviewed and approved by the Healthy Start Tyler Program Director, Manager and Midwife. In addition to becoming a certified doulas, all doulas will be required to attend ongoing, evidence-based training throughout the project period including family planning, early education, social services, life-skills training, labor coaching, and breastfeeding education and counseling. Population to be served. Residents living in selected zip codes of Smith County, with a focus on those areas of the County that have the highest rate of infant mortality and poor perinatal outcomes in Black non-Hispanic and American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) non-Hispanic populations.