Over 12 months, we will provide doula support and childbirth education for 50 women experiencing homelessness and family violence (FV), during pregnancy, birth and early parenting. The project will improve birth and early parenting experiences and longer-term health and wellbeing outcomes for those least able to access quality, continuous care in Melbourne.
Our program directly responds to international evidence:
We will match clients with a skilled doula. Working alongside the public maternity system, doulas are key members of the care team. We take a trauma-informed approach that recognises the individual needs of clients who have experienced violence and abuse. This helps prepare them for the transition to parenthood and creates a safe space for themselves and their children.
Our doulas will be trained on the specific complex care needs of people experiencing FV and homelessness. This will also be made available to midwives and health workers, to improve quality of care for all women impacted by FV.
Through this program we expect all clients to report an increase in confidence and preparedness for birth and parenting, and an experience of respectful maternity care as a result of the support we provide. Evidence shows that when women receive one-to-one, continuous, practical, emotional and physical support through pregnancy, birth and early parenting—such as through a doula—they have better birth experiences and a lifetime of better maternal and child health outcomes.
This includes:
Our strong reputation for providing quality care to women in crisis has led to increasingly complex referrals. Last year half the women who accessed our service had experienced family violence and 25% of our clients were experiencing homelessness or insecure housing. Our conversations with referrers and partners in the maternity and women’s health sector indicate that there is an ever-increasing need for this kind of support. This program begins to address the gap in current maternity service provision. 65% of our clients are referred from public maternity hospitals – demonstrating their understanding of the critical, complementary support service we provide to women. This program will further build our collaboration with the public health system.
We have supported births in all public maternity hospitals in Melbourne and Geelong. These partnerships with community health and social support service providers, will provide referrals to the program.
We will use these networks and our online education resources to offer professional development training to workers who support women experiencing homelessness or family violence, to have wider systemic influence.
Data will be collected through:
We will use the outcomes and findings gathered from this data to advocate to government, public hospital management and other community health providers to increasingly integrate non-clinical, continuity of support models—such as use of doulas—alongside mainstream maternity services.
Stories and evidence will also be used to inform public communications, to raise awareness of the issues. Data will also contribute to our monitoring, evaluation and learning frameworks and impact reporting.
When we invest in women and girls, we are investing in the people who invest in everybody else.
Also known as Australian Women Donors Network (ABN: 28 141 197 471), Australians Investing in Women is a registered charity endorsed by the Australian Tax Office as a deductible gift recipient (DGR1) under a special listing, all donations over $2 are tax deductible.