IDHS-DEC Home Visiting Doula Enhancement Narrative (Optional)

IDHS-DEC Home Visiting

Doula Enhancement Narrative (OPTIONAL)

Note: The Doula Enhancement Narratives will be scored separately (the doula narrative points will NOT be added cumulatively to the points for the home visiting program narrative). IDHS-DEC anticipates funding five or fewer Doula-enhanced home visiting programs in SFY23.

1. Community Need (total 20 points)

  1. Geographic service area and community need. (15 points) Provide a clear definition of the population to be served and convincing evidence, including demographic information, that there is a need for doula services in the service area. Describe how the program reflects the needs of families.
  2. Coordination. (5 points) If there are other doula services in your service area, list those providers and briefly describe how your program plans to coordinate with them to improve access for families and avoid competition, dual enrollment, and duplication of efforts.

2. Capacity (total 50 points)

  1. Experience. (15 points) Briefly describe the organization's experience in providing culturally responsive doula services to families in the service area.
  2. Staffing. (10 points) Outline the doula program's management and staffing structure. Describe their areas of responsibility and their lines of communication, including how they relate to the home visiting program. Indicate which staff are already in place and which positions are vacant/to be hired. Describe your program's home visitor-to-doula ratio to ensure space for doula participants to transition into long term home visiting services.
  3. Doula coverage. (5 points) Because of the unique nature and demands of labor and delivery, doulas often work non-traditional hours and may sometimes work over 40 hours/week. Please describe your program's plan for doula coverage, including a back-up plan for labor and deliveries when a doula is unavailable or attending another birth.
  4. Caseload size. (5 points) Because time must be allowed for attending births, the maximum size for a doula caseload is ten (10) participants at any one time. Describe your program's proposed doula caseload and the total number of families to be served in SFY23.
  5. Core services. (10 points) Describe your program's plan for: 1) creation of birth plans between doulas and participants; 2) offering prenatal groups, including sample topics and frequency schedule; and 3) supporting and encouraging breastfeeding during the perinatal period. Indicate how many of the proposed services are already in place and state what arrangements need to be made in order to fully implement the program.
  6. Embedding doulas into long-term home visiting program. (5 points) Doula participants are expected to integrate into the long-term home visiting program. Explain your program's plan for full integration of families accessing doula services into long-term home visiting, including the frequency of prenatal visits and by whom, the transition plan from doula to home visitor, and the time frame in which the transition will occur.

3. Quality (total 25 points)

  1. Culturally responsive staffing. (5 points) Describe to what extent your program's doula workforce reflects the population served (in terms of race, ethnicity, primary language, and other characteristics). Describe the training, professional development, or technical assistance that your program uses to ensure that staff provide doula services in a culturally and linguistically responsive manner. Describe hiring plans (whenever vacancies occur) to ensure doula staff reflect the population served.
  2. Supervision. (5 points) The preferred supervisory ratio for doulas is 1:5, and 1:6 is the maximum. (This means that the supervisor of the Doulas must not supervise more than six (6) staff members in total.) Doula supervisors must attend training to ensure that they are knowledgeable of the doula's job responsibilities and can support their work. Describe your program's supervision ratio and the professional development plan for doula supervisors. Describe your agency's protocol for providing reflective supervision to supervisors.
  3. Clinical consultation. (5 points) Though doula services are not a medical intervention, some participants will have medical complications during pregnancy or in delivery. For this reason, it is important that doulas have access to clinical consultation from someone with a medical background (such as a nurse, a midwife, or a similarly trained expert). Explain your program's plan for engaging a clinical consultant, the consultant's qualifications, and the number of hours per month your program plans to contract with the clinical consultant.
  4. Referral partnerships. (5 points) Explain how your program plans to cultivate agreements with entities that work with pregnant persons in your area, to ensure families can be enrolled in services by the beginning of the third trimester. Indicate how many pregnant persons will be served and describe how all participants will be recruited and assessed for program intake. Describe how your program will coordinate the early identification of pregnant persons, including plans to develop collaborative agreements with local clinics/hospitals for screening of potential participants during pregnancy.
  5. Maternal health partnerships. (5 points) Cite names of hospitals or birthing centers where participants will deliver, and state how your program will formally partner with these entities to ensure that doulas are welcomed into delivery rooms for their participants' deliveries.