Supporting Community-based Doula Programs

Fresh out of a Masters of Public Health (Research) at La Trobe University, she could see the clear need for a new monitoring framework and plan for evaluating client feedback.

"We had to call every client individually to ask about their experiences, then input their answers into the database we’d been using for several years. We did not have staff capacity to make these calls or enter the data, so were usually relying on volunteers. This meant there  would be blocks of time when we didn’t have volunteers to make the calls and we would miss out on a few months’ data, which was really frustrating."

Due to funding and time limitations, Giorgia did not have capacity to undertake such a project within the scope of her role. Encouraged by her CEO, she applied to participate in Melbourne Social Equity Institute’s Community Fellows Program.

The funding that came with her Community Fellows Program enrolment ensured that she could work for an additional day a week for seven months. Mentored by Associate Professor Meghan Bohren, an expert in evaluating women’s experiences of pregnancy and childbirth care, Giorgia set about researching evidence-based evaluation frameworks used by other community groups. She then developed an implementation plan and survey tool.

Birth for Humankind is a small not-for-profit based in Melbourne, entirely funded by philanthropy. It provides free support for women and gender diverse pregnant people experiencing economic hardship and social disadvantage, such as refugee background, experience of domestic violence, risk of homelessness and Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander. Most of Birth for Humankind’s clients do not have adequate birth support and very little access to childbirth education. They come from a diverse range of cultural backgrounds and as many as a third come from non English-speaking backgrounds, requiring translation and interpreting support.

Birth for Humankind provides clients with ongoing, continuous support, through a volunteer doula (a trained and experienced birth support person) who conducts pre-natal visits to build a social support relationship with the client, complementing the care provided by their midwife or doctor. They are then available on call from 38 weeks’ gestation and provide continuous support during labour and birth. They also provide extended postnatal support.

Clients are usually referred to Birth for Humankind by hospital-based social workers. It is the only service of its kind in Australia. This end-to-end care has been demonstrated to improve birth experiences and maternal-newborn health outcomes.

Giorgia worked for many years as a midwife, leaving to complete her Masters research into the impact of trauma experienced by midwives in the workplace. Her work at Birth for Humankind has brought her full-circle to the reason she embarked on her midwifery career in the first place: to advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion in maternity care.

Thanks to her time in the Community Fellows Program, Giorgia now has the expertise to gather and implement data to drive service improvement, and advocate for greater – and more targeted – services within the sector.

"The Community Fellows Program has given me, and a lot of other individuals and organisations, capacity that they otherwise would not have had, whether that’s financial, time or research skills.

It’s fantastic to have the space to work on projects that are really important to us and our organisations, because they will benefit the health of the community and society in general. Otherwise, these projects will stay unidentified or languish for lack of attention.

It’s wonderful that the University of Melbourne is sharing research skills and findings with the community rather than keeping everything internal. When you’re within a university, there are so many great opportunities to explore research but when you’re sitting outside of that, there is not a lot of capacity to learn about it, apply it or benefit from it. And then the community misses out on a lot of useful ideas and approaches to making positive change.

I really enjoyed and appreciated the network I built through the Community Fellows Program. It was incredibly inspiring to be surrounded by passionate capable people who are making a difference in the world. I also really appreciated how customisable, flexible and responsive the program was, so that we could make the most of it depending on what our needs and skill sets were. My mentor was excellent: she guided me towards research topics that were unfamiliar to me and I have come away with research findings that are super practical and applicable to my workplace."

Giorgia’s mentor, Associate Professor Meghan Bohren had this to say about her project:

"Giorgia developed a feasible and important project that will have a tangible impact on how Birth for Humankind’s services work. Understanding women and gender diverse pregnant people’s experiences with the support the receive from Birth for Humankind doulas is critical to ensure that their doulas are trained on what best practices mean to their clients, and to ensure that they are continuously learning what works, what doesn’t work, and why.

Giorgia was deeply committed to her project and making a difference. It was an honour to act as her mentor. Personally, I also found the mentorship experience a learning experience too – our team has done a lot of research on the effectiveness of doula programs and labour companionship, so it was very rewarding to see how our research evidence could be directly translated into practice at Birth for Humankind."