Direct Perinatal Support- Providing education, support and empowerment to BIPOC childbearing people

Patient Advocacy/Empowerment - We empower our clients to lift their voices in defense of their own health and well being.

Workforce Development - Training perinatal community health workers (PCHWs) using our proprietary curriculum, and providing them with a foundation in healthcare and health literacy that will enable them to further their education in birth/maternity work (IBCLC-Lactation, Midwifery, nursing, medicine) if they so choose.

Community Organizing for Health Literacy, Health Equity and Reproductive Justice - We raise awareness about the high rates of Maternal Morbidity and Mortality in BIPOC childbearing people, and the role of institutionalized and structural racism in maternity care

Wage Equity - Ensuring that the PCHWs receive a living wage and benefits so that they are elevated out of poverty and above the impacts of the social determinants of health plaguing their communities, their clients and their very own health.

Legislative Advocacy - We advance policies and initiatives that address birth outcome disparities, focus on lowering maternal morbidity and mortality, address structural/institutionalized racism, and promote wage equity for birth workers.

We train and employ PCHWs!

These highly skilled public health workers educate, support and assist childbearing people and their families to access information, healthcare, and social service resources to make wise and informed health choices for themselves, their babies, their families and their communities. We developed The Healing Hands Community Birthing Project Perinatal Community Health Worker certification.

This certification requires: 

• 40 hours of birth support 

• 160 hours of state approved CHW training and certification,

• Trainees support 10 childbearing families through pregnancy, labor and delivery and though weeks postpartum. 

Our PCHWs

• Educate clients and their families about reproductive health

• Educate clients about their healthcare options and human rights

• Provide direct, non-medical physical and emotional support through pregnancy, continuously through labor and delivery, and for up to 12-18 months postpartum

• Provide case management and referral services for the families we serve. 

• Connect clients with commuity and social services resources (i.e. access Medicaid, SNAP, TANF, housing assistance, etc.)