BLACK BIRTHWORKERS COMMUNITY
The goal of Maternal Mental Health NOW’s Black Birthworkers Community is to build capacity, create community, and provide support to Black birth workers in order to improve access to holistic, culturally appropriate perinatal mental health care for Los Angeles County’s Black birthing population. Under the leadership of a 12-person Advisory Committee, the Black Birthworkers Community organizes events and iniatives that provide opportunities for care, celebration, support and connection between members of the Black workforce serving LA’s Black birthing community.
ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Black Birthworkers Enrichment Fund
Black communities face the most substantial barriers to accessing timely, culturally sensitive, and informed prenatal and perinatal health and mental health care. What’s more, the providers best equipped to deliver high-quality care – Black birthworkers – carry the heaviest burdens as it relates to costs associated with sustaining their practice and caring for families. As a result, our region is facing a severe shortage of holistic, Black-led resources, the most integral component of caring for families navigating pregnancy and postpartum.
In response to this crisis, Maternal Mental Health NOW launched the LA County Black Birthworkers Enrichment Fund in hopes of improving the well-being and birth outcomes of the Black birthing community by caring for those who care for them. Funding was made available to support Black Birthworkers at three levels:
Training and Education: Up to $600 for costs associated with new certification, continuing education units to maintain an existing certification, conference registrations, other educational opportunities, etc.
Personal Expenses: Up to $300 for costs associated with emergency childcare, transportation, food, equipment, ergonomic chair/desk for work from home, etc.
Self-care: Up to $100 for costs associated with a spa day, therapy session, personal day off work, supplements/vitamins, etc.
Maternal Mental Health NOW received an overwhelming 29 submissions to the first release of the Black Enrichment Fund, which speaks to the need this funding fills within the birthworker space. Maternal Mental Health NOW awarded a total of $10,400 to 17 Black birth workers, primarily for education and training purposes. We are looking forward to releasing this funding opportunity again soon!
For questions, concerns, or feedback please e-mail us bbw_fund@
HISTORY
The Black Birthworkers Community is a direct response to the Perinatal Mental Health Conference for Black Birthworkers, Providers & Clinicians that Maternal Mental Health NOW and iDREAM for Racial Health Equity hosted in May 2021. The conference was the culminating event of the Improving Perinatal Mental Health Outcomes for Pregnant and Postpartum Black Birthing People in LA County project. The conference had 188 attendees, including mental health professionals, doulas, lactation consultants, parent and childbirth educators, nurses, home visitors, midwives, and physicians. Overwhelming feedback from conference participants included requests to have additional opportunities to learn, network, celebrate and care for other Black birth workers on an ongoing basis.