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 Global Perinatal Services, Chinese Information & Service Center, and JSOL STUDIOS .
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 Center for Indigenous Midwifery and their community-designed program model!
Center for Indigenous Midwifery
Images provided by Center for Indigenous Midwifery
Center for Indigenous Midwifery (CFIM) strengthens community by honoring, supporting, and reclaiming Indigenous midwifery care. As a CBPS strategy partner, CFIM went through the innovation supports process to develop their program: Family Support and Educational Resources.
“It was very useful to sit down as a team and discuss our values,” said Marissa Bolaños, Childbirth Education Coordinator. “Having the structure and support through the [Innovation Supports] program made us have a lot more clarity of how to make [our work] sustainable so that we can keep providing this support to families.”
CFIM’s Family Support and Educational Resources program has three main objectives:
- To provide direct support to families via childbirth education, monthly support groups, creative writing workshops, craft circles, and other events;
- To provide capacity building support and trainings to strengthen skillsets and increase and sustain the number of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) birth workers; and
- To develop and maintain a library of culturally relevant resources, including recorded Zoomcast presentations and diverse educational materials for birth workers and families.
Marissa said the process felt overwhelming at first, but she really appreciated being paired up with another organization that had already gone through the process.
“I love that [the Innovation Supports team] paired us up with an organization… it really made a difference for us and made it really accessible,“ she said. “I really appreciated their mentoring.”
To learn more about CFIM and the work they’re doing, please contact Marissa Bolaños at media@indigenous-midwifery.org, check out their list of upcoming programming, or sign up for their newsletter at the bottom of this page.
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
