Engaging Women of Color in Health Professions: East Bay Community Birth Support Project
The purpose of this project is to provide employment opportunities for low-income and previously incarcerated women of color by training them as birth doulas. Our long-term goal is to develop and support direct paths to advanced health professions for these women.
Rationale/Background
Low-income and previously incarcerated women of color are least represented in the health professions and more likely to experience health disparities in birth outcomes. Three organizations came together to develop a woman of color centric doula training for low-income and previously incarcerated women. The Birth Justice Project (BJP) mission is to end reproductive injustice within incarcerated and underserved populations. Black Women Birthing Justice (BWBJ) is a collective of African-American, African, Caribbean and multiracial women whose vision is that that every woman should have an empowering birthing experience free of unnecessary medical interventions. The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Family Health Care Nursing Department’s mission is to optimize the health and well-being of children, women, and families in a changing multicultural society through our nursing programs of teaching, research, and practice, as well as through community service. These organizations developed a partnership to establish birth doula work as a “gateway drug” to the health professions for low-income and previously incarcerated women and to test this vocational training as an intervention to reduce recidivism.
Methods
Sixteen women were recruited to participate in the East Bay Community Birth Support Project, which was named to capture our work and our project. The participants in the program are all women of color where 60% identify as African American and 40% identify as Latina/Hispanic. Half of these women report being previously incarcerated. Partnership agreements were developed between BJP, BWBJ and UCSF to create a programmatic and curricular structure that encouraged and targeted recruitment and retention of women of color as trainers and participants. Additionally the cohort of doula trainees were each provided with an experienced mentor doula to assist them with their first five births. Surveys were administered to the entire group regarding quality of and experiences with the training, trainers, ability to grasp the material and belief in personal ability to support women during birth. Focus groups were conducted after the training to determine the participants’ perceived self-efficacy of being a doula and doing birth work.
Outcomes achieved/documented
Eighty-eight percent of participants completed the entire three-weekends of training and twelve percent completed at least two weekends of training. Overall, women in this training program report high satisfaction and were empowered to provide birth support to women. Half of the participants have disclosed a desire to continue their education and interest in pursuing careers such as nursing, midwifery, psychology, social work and substance abuse counseling. Three doulas are developing specialties working with youth and teens and one doula is collaborating with the training team to develop less heteronormative materials.
Conclusions
Universities should engage community based partners to develop direct, non-traditional pathways to supplement entry of women of color into the health professions.