IRFP No. 902656 Doula Support Services for the Beloved Birth Black Centering Group Prenatal Care Program

{
  "id": 217739,
  "_slug": "acgov",
  "title": "IRFP No. 902656 Doula Support Services for the Beloved Birth Black Centering Group Prenatal Care Program",
  "status": "awardPending",
  "summary": "<p>Doulas and birth workers play a vital role in providing social and emotional support as well as advocacy, which is often necessary for desired, safe, and healthy perinatal experiences for Black pregnant people. In 2023, there were 1,551 live births reported among Black-identifying birthing individuals in Alameda County. Unfortunately, this group also experienced the highest rates of infant mortality. The support of doulas is a crucial intervention that can help reduce the likelihood of both parental and infant mortality, especially for Black families. Doulas offer holistic care, education, and tools for self-advocacy and perinatal knowledge that Black parents rarely receive from clinical providers during their perinatal journey. Alameda County intends to expand access to this care which can often be cost-prohibitive because doulas themselves require livable wages and means for care by connecting experienced community doulas with clients in the target populations and providing funding for the full spectrum of perinatal experiences.</p><p>In addition to this initiative&rsquo;s primary funding source, the Perinatal Equity Initiative (PEI), this effort to increase access to quality and culturally reflective doula care is a component of the ACPHD&rsquo;s Rising Perinatal and Reproductive Equity work. The following themes are central to this work:</p><ol><li>Reproductive Equity: ACPHD upholds a standard of care that prioritizes equitable access and quality of services for clients across a variety of reproductive and perinatal experiences. ACPHD centers the voices and experiences of those who tend to face the most systemic marginalization and risk for harm due to racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of systemic violence. This includes programming that addresses disparities caused by these systems by prioritizing services for those most impacted and ensuring that these services are both healing and culturally reflective&mdash;this informs the current strategy to offer services to Black-identifying pregnant people in a variety of programs and services across Alameda County.</li><li>Culturally Reflective and Identity-Affirming Care: ACPHD upholds an equity-based value of contracting with service providers who can empathize and understand the experiences of their clients because of the ways that their own identities and experiences inform and are reflected in their practice. Additionally, ACPHD values the Afro-Indigenous ways of knowing that influence and contribute to perinatal care, particularly for Black-identifying clients. ACPHD also acknowledges that the experiences and identities of Black-identifying pregnant people are not monolithic and intends to provide care that is identity and gender-affirming at all points of service.</li><li>Trauma-Informed Care: An understanding of how past experiences affect an individual&rsquo;s current health and well-being. Trauma‐informed practice acknowledges the power of past experiences to make progress toward recovery and takes a collaborative approach, where healing is led by the client and supported by the service provider. Additionally, ACPHD acknowledges how collective trauma and stress from generational, historical, and current events can affect perinatal wellness for both clients and providers. ACPHD will support ongoing training and resources to ensure that providers are well- prepared to serve clients with varying needs and circumstances that require trauma-informed care.</li></ol><p>Additionally, the following values are essential to ACPHD Doula programming:</p><ol><li>Community-Stakeholder Engagement: Throughout the contracting process, provider, client, and community perspectives will be solicited and compensated to ensure that programming is reflective of community needs. This includes, but is not limited to, an ongoing Community Advisory Board made up primarily of birth workers. This contributes to continuous quality improvement and system accountability to the community voice.</li><li>Strengths-Based Approaches to Care: ACPHD uses a strengths-based lens when performing services and collecting and analyzing data. This lens allows us to acknowledge that, while disparities exist due to systemic oppression, opportunities for clients to have equitable and desired outcomes persist. ACPHD focuses on the strengths of clients and the ways their life experiences and identities can inform their specialized care, empowering and uplifting them rather than hindering them.</li><li>Client Autonomy &amp; Advocacy: Client goals and desires for perinatal outcomes are at the center of this work, and both birth workers and ACPHD staff will advocate for clients in structurally challenging spaces, as well as support and inform clients in ways that encourage them to advocate for themselves.</li><li>Respect and Care for Providers: The birth workers who provide this vital care are as valued and important as the clients ACPHD serves. As this program is intended to offer reflective care, many of the care providers we work with have identities and experiences that are reflective of the target populations for this programming. This program is designed to positively impact both clients and providers, ensuring that birth workers are respected while providing services and have access to and time for necessary care and recovery, both during and after providing services.</li><li>Shared Outcomes: ACPHD is committed to meeting goals for services, collecting data about the quality and quantity of services provided, and ensuring that this data is accessible to all stakeholders involved. This includes innovative approaches to data collection and community input on which outcomes, in addition to those requested by the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and ACPHD, are important to track and measure.</li></ol>",
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  "template": {
    "title": "Alameda County Agencies/Depts RFP (Upload a RFP Document)"
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  "created_at": "2025-11-21T05:55:24.947Z",
  "department": {
    "id": 11400,
    "name": "General Services Agency-Procurement"
  },
  "government": {
    "code": "acgov",
    "organization": {
      "city": "Oakland",
      "logo": "https://assets.procurement.opengov.com/logo-uploads/48096d67-e600-45bd-a172-082ab3434586_Copy_of_Standard.jpg",
      "name": "County of Alameda, CA",
      "phone": "(510)272-6548",
      "state": "CA",
      "website": "https://www.acgov.org/",
      "zipCode": "94612",
      "address1": "1401 Lakeside Drive, 10th Floor",
      "address2": null,
      "phoneExt": null,
      "timezone": "America/Los_Angeles",
      "countryCode": "US",
      "phoneCountry": "1"
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  },
  "financialId": "IRFP No. 902656",
  "closeOutReason": null,
  "closedSubstatus": null,
  "proposalDeadline": "2026-01-13T22:00:34.935Z",
  "releaseProjectDate": "2025-12-22T21:20:56.611Z"
}