Course Title: Community Based Doulas and Black Maternal and Infant Mortality Crisis
Trainer: Jazzmine Brooks, Jai Olive Wellness
Timing: 2 hours, Offered One Time Per Semester
Description: According to DONA International, community-based doulas are trained birth workers that provide culturally appropriate and kindred-spirited non-clinical emotional, physical, and informational support before, during, and after birth. Programs such as these improve prenatal care, raise chestfeeding rates, decrease unnecessary medical interventions, increase positive birth experiences, and improve parenting skills. Black doulas play a critical role in combating discrimination and racism in medicine and services, improving autonomy, and increasing the pregnant person's health efficacy and empowerment to advocate for themselves and their family. Jazzmine Brooks “Rural Black Doula ™,” full-spectrum doula, Doula Liaison to the Title V Doula Project with Everystep, and Ph.D. student at Iowa State University, works with Black and POC families and doulas across the state of Iowa to engage in work that centers Black families and elevates the voices of Black and POC communities within birth work. This workshop will cover the historical and contemporary relevance of community-based doula programs, the collaborative efforts in Iowa between Black doula programs and state and local agencies to increase positive birth outcomes, ways to center Black and POC communities in rural child welfare practices, and a case study to engage around access, availability, and representation that is equitable and culturally responsive to rural families. Participants will leave with tools to engage with community doula support and ways to dismantle inequitable systems for historically marginalized populations.
Learning Objectives:
- Define historical and contemporary community-based doula programs.
- Recognize connections between community-based doula programs and Black maternal and infant mortality rates within Iowa
- Identify the role of rural home visiting services and collaboration of community-based doula programs.
Prerequisite Required: Leaning in: Maternal and Infant Health
Competencies Addressed: Community Resources and Support; Relationship-Based Family Partnerships; Dynamics of Family Relationships; & Effective Home Visits.
Reflective Questions:
- If services in your community are lacking, what steps can you take to connect families to supports using the information you now know about community-based doula programs?
- Define historical and contemporary community-based doula programs.
- Discuss a time that you supported a parent with understanding how pregnancy risk factors impact a mother’s health and that of the developing child.