This is a blog series featuring various partners and their experience with developing community-designed programs through the Innovation Supports process. Check out the feature on Chinese Information & Service Center, JSOL STUDIOS, and Center for Indigenous Midwifery.
At Best Starts, we know children and families are best supported when services and programs provided are community-led and community-informed. We believe in the power and creativity of communities to create and develop program models that are right for them, based on lived experience and learned expertise. Through our Innovation Supports strategy, we collaborate with partners to go through the innovation process to create programs that serve children, from birth to age 5, and their families.
Last year, 16 partners within our Child Care Health Consultation (CCHC) and Community-Based Parenting Supports (CBPS) strategy completed the six-month innovation supports process. In fall 2023, our partners gathered in Tukwila to celebrate and share their new community-designed program models.
Today, we are excited to feature Global Perinatal Services and their community-designed program model!
Global Perinatal Services
Global Perinatal Services (GPS) creates culturally responsive pregnancy and parenting experiences for Black, immigrant, and refugee families. As a CBPS strategy partner, GPS went through the innovation supports process to develop their program: Perinatal & Lactation: Easy Access Clinic.
“The Easy Access Clinic was kind of this big idea that we had and that we needed to put on paper,” said Denise Felipe, Perinatal & Lactation Program Manager. “We spoke about… a free clinic where people can come in regardless of immigration status and medical insurance status… But to be able to work with the innovation supports team… was so important for me to understand… and picture long term what this program would look like and how it would serve the community.”
After six-months of program design and development, the Easy Access Clinic became a reality and officially opened last November. The Easy Access Clinic is a one-stop shop for pregnant individuals and their families to get connected to midwife services, lactation and doula support, and other pregnancy supports. Community members can visit the Burien Clinic on Tuesdays and the Federal Way Clinic on Thursdays.
Denise shared that GPS is excited to continue implementing this program and seek community feedback.
She also wants other community partners who may not be as familiar with Best Starts Innovation Supports strategy to know that “it’s really a support and a strategy aimed to highlight the strengths of organizations.”
Denise said, “[The innovation supports team] is really there to help guide you in that process of starting a program and get those ideas that you have in a way that is organized and also in a process that you can effectively implement.”
To learn more about GPS and the work they’re doing, please contact Denise Felipe at info@globalperinatal.org.
Download the Easy Access Clinic Flyer in English, Dari/Farsi, Pashto, Somali, Spanish
Thank you!
A big thank you all the CCHC and CBPS strategy partners for your participation and engagement in the six-month innovation supports process. Thank you for the love, care, and intentionality that you put into developing and designing programs for our P-5 community.
- API Chaya
- Atlantic Street Center
- Center for Indigenous Midwifery (fiscally sponsored by Consultants for Indian Progress)
- Centro Rendu (St Vincent de Paul of Seattle/King County)
- Chinese Information and Service Center
- Global Perinatal Services
- Gwen’s Guidance
- Indian American Community Services
- JSOL Studios, LLC
- Mother Africa
- Navos
- Pacific Islander Health Board of Washington
- Resilient in Sustaining Empowerment (RISE)
- Somali Childcare Providers Association
- Somali Health Board
- Voices of Tomorrow
And we want to give a shoutout to the innovation supports team, capacity builders, and consultants for providing guidance and support as partners developed their community-designed programs.
- Cardea Services
- Hayaan, LLC
- Mother Africa
- Pollock and Partners