Explanation
BACKGROUND: The Office of CelebrateOne was awarded a grant from the Ohio Department of Medicaid which is administered by the State’s Managed Care Plans. Ordinance 1723-2022, passed by Columbus City Council included $200,000.00 for a doula expansion program in order to fund a training and certification program in order to expand the number of doulas within the Central Ohio area. This ordinance funds the first contract of $100,000.00 to begin training up to 30 doulas. A renewal contract for an additional $100,000.00 may be legislated at a later date.
Each year, more than 130 babies die in Franklin County before reaching their first birthday. Over 2,000 more are born prematurely. Franklin County’s African American families are disproportionately impacted by infant mortality, experiencing an infant mortality rate 2.5 times higher than non-Hispanic white families in Columbus. Therefore, resources and tools must be geared towards these geographic and cultural communities.
To combat this tremendous threat of our families and communities, the Greater Columbus Infant Mortality Task Force of 2014 was assembled to develop community recommendations and an implementation plan. That plan set goals to reduce the community’s alarming infant mortality rate by 40 percent and cut the racial health disparity gap in half by 2020 with eight recommendations for how our community could achieve these goals. That plan has served as the guiding light for the work of CelebrateOne and its many partners. CelebrateOne has made tremendous progress in implementing the plan’s recommendations and strategies and, ultimately, achieving the plan’s goals. Racial disparities in birth outcomes remain high and the global COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated systemic barriers faced by families most at risk for poor birth outcomes while simultaneously creating new obstacles for providers and partners to provide care.
This request for proposals, advertised on April 5, 2023, represents Celebrat...
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