We aim to invest in solutions centered around the State’s current maternal and infant health gaps in access to care, racial and/or rural health disparity, perinatal workforce development, and maternal mental health. Applications should reflect our vision of a Georgia where every birth giver and baby has the resources and support to be healthy and thrive throughout the perinatal period. Innovative solutions with sustainability models are preferred to one-time initiatives. Solutions may align with, but are not limited to the following HMHBGA strategies:

• Perinatal (Prenatal & Postpartum) Mental or Behavioral Health Education

• Telehealth Mental Health Services

• Resource and Information Referral, Access, & Distribution

• Perinatal (Prenatal & Postpartum) Behavioral Health Workforce Development

• Maternal Mental Health Support & Education

• Domestic Violence Protections

• Substance Use Prevention (among pregnant and postpartum people)

• Coalition Building

• Research & Data Evaluation as an avenue to Advocacy & Policy Change

General Requirements:

• Build on the strengths and assets already existing in the community.

• Non-profit businesses — Applicants do not need to have tax exempt status such as 501(c)(3), but if they do not have tax exempt status, they must have a fiscal agent who does. Applicants must provide a letter from fiscal agents indicating their willingness to serve in that capacity and describing the roles and responsibilities of the relationship. They also must provide the fiscal agent’s IRS tax exemption letter. HMHBGA will issue awarded grant checks to the tax-exempt organization, which must have a business bank account.

• For-profit businesses — Must have less than 10 full-time staff members.

• Show the capacity to complete activities funded by HMHBGA starting October 1, 2022 ending no later than September 30, 2023.

Preferred attributes include:

• Demonstrate community support and engagement;

• Address community issues and having clear benefits for the community;

• Have a plan for sustaining the project beyond the initial investment by HMHBGA; and

• Provide a reasonable budget that does not include compensation for time.

Ineligible projects/organizations include:

• Government/public agencies;

• Agencies that have more than ten full-time paid staff members and an annual operating budget of more than $250,000;

• Projects that only benefit an individual or household rather than the broader community;

• Organizations that have a HMHBGA Board member serving in the role of senior staff, key consultant, or Board member; and

• Nonprofits or community-based organizations that do not demonstrate active involvement with the community they have determined to serve.

Selected grantees must:

• Provide a clear budget for the awarded grant amount and an organizational budget;

• Attend the grantee orientation to present maternal and infant health strategy (no more than 10-minute presentation);

• Schedule and invite HMHBGA Programs Team to visit their project at the mid-point;

• Submit final reports with itemized receipts within 30 days of the grant cycle end;

• Submit final progress reports within 30 days of the grant cycle end.

Allure Birth Concierge of Columbus Wellness Center

Allure Birth Concierge serves as a grassroots program sponsored by Columbus Wellness Center Outreach & Prevention Project, Inc. The sponsoring organization and Luella Rhodes, PA have served the Chattahoochee Valley area for over 30 years. Its mission is to inspire expectant families with evidence-based information and support to experience a powerful, beautiful pregnancy and birthing journey.

Allure Birth of the Valley collaborative team is designed with dedicated innovators serving Rural Chattahoochee, Clay, Marion, and Randolph Counties. This collaborative program is committed to assessing the immediate needs of expectant parents and new parents to provide support, supplies, childbirth preparation education, and introduction to doula services including recruitment and training.

Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Georgia is supporting the project’s pop-up baby showers and exhibits/events within Clay, Chattahoochee/Marion, and Randolph Counties, childbirth preparation education, and outreach efforts to families.

United by Loss Foundation Inc.

Founded in February 2022, United by Loss Foundation, Inc. serves DeKalb County, Georgia. They seek to provide grief support, educational resources, tools, and advocacy for Black women and birth givers who have experienced perinatal loss.

Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Georgia is supporting their initiative to serve Black women and families who have experienced perinatal loss, which includes distributing Sympathy & Solace Comfort Packages to a local OB/GYN office in DeKalb County, hosting biweekly perinatal loss support groups, and hosting a Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day Balloon Release.

Their project promotes health equity by increasing access to vital resources and support for those disproportionately affected by maternal and infant death, including Black mothers and birth givers who currently reside in DeKalb County, GA. This is a new project, but it will be an ongoing initiative for United by Loss Foundation, Inc.

The Atlanta Doula Collective

The Atlanta Doula Collective works to uplift and empower Black mothers and birthing people, via the provision of labor support services, community outreach programs, and support group platforms. They work to shift the paradigm of Black Maternal Health disparities into a narrative of thriving Black Maternal Wellness. ADC focuses on serving families within the Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fulton, Fayette, Gwinnett, and Paulding counties of Georgia to name a few.

Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Georgia is supporting some of their doula and lactation support services that they will provide to those individuals who cannot afford to have a doula, the continuation of their current child birth education classes, and the continuation of their education classes for doulas.

Operation M.I.S.T.

Operation M.I.S.T's mission is to reduce the occurrence of preventable diseases during pregnancy and prevent mortality during and after delivery. As an organization, they remotely monitor the health data of women to make them more aware of how their day-to-day choices are affecting their ability to get pregnant, their pregnancies, deliveries and recoveries. If they notice a woman's body trying to alert her that something is not quite right, a licensed healthcare provider performs an outreach via text message or phone call and either helps her modify her lifestyle or provides her with the data she needs to have her symptoms further investigated by her provider. Because they monitor moms remotely, they eliminate the barrier of access to care in rural and underserved communities. The overarching goal of Operation M.I.S.T. is to reduce the risk of complications and unnecessary medical interventions that can be averted through education, collaboration, lifestyle modifications, advocacy and the addressing of social determinants of health.

Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Georgia is supporting their More than A Period project is to educate women about the physiology of their bodies as it relates to their fertility cycles. They have found that women know a lot about when they bleed, but don't know about the other three phases which can result in unwanted and/or undetected pregnancies. They believe if women knew how their bodies worked, the number of unplanned pregnancies could be reduced, and pregnancies could be detected sooner. Having this knowledge ultimately helps women who want to get pregnant show up to pregnancy better prepared and helps those who don't want to get pregnant prevent it from happening without having to rely on medical interventions that could impact their future fertility.

Ready Set Push, Inc

Ready Set Push's mission is to provide access to quality prenatal breastfeeding classes, childbirth classes and lactation consults for low-income families. They provide prenatal childbirth and breastfeeding classes to low-income families. They provide postpartum lactation consultations for underinsured families. Without access to early prenatal education, families are not aware of nutrition choices, provider choice, exercise requirements and many other things that increase their risks for medical interventions during labor and delivery. Once delivered without access to prenatal breastfeeding classes or knowledge about postnatal lactation resources, new parents give up on breastfeeding. The classes and support at Ready Set Push helps to reduce barriers, facilitate safer births, and encourage longer breastfeeding duration.

Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Georgia is supporting their project to create high quality curriculum that can be accessed from anywhere in the state. They will create a resource that is intended to be used throughout the entire pregnancy but also provide opportunities to interact with local resources depending on the user's zip code. They hope to develop an accompanying app when additional funding becomes available. They will continue providing virtual classes, but also need additional equipment to help with consults and reduce the difficulty families have in obtaining breast pumps.

Thriving Lane, LLC DBA LunaJoy

Thriving Lane's mission is to elevate women's mental health through holistic therapy. They believe that there are so many gaps in the mental health needs of women, especially around vulnerable life transitions. The current medical system, especially for women of color and underserved populations, does not anticipate their emotional needs. They focus on mental health during pregnancy and postpartum which includes various psychotherapies, positive psychology, CBT, dynamic therapy, mind-body interventions, exercise, and nutrition that help optimize health and wellbeing. LunaJoy wants to bridge the gap between mothers experiencing mental health disorders and care. One way to do that is to institute a mental health screening tool to connect with women who are being discharged from the hospital after giving birth. The short-term benefit is that the patient concerns are addressed, and PCPs, OBGYN etc, will have a place to refer their patients that would otherwise not have access to care. The long-term benefit, other than providing patient care, is the screening tool offers an additional revenue stream to help alleviate extra burden of cost to implementing a screening tool.

Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Georgia is supporting their development of a program for peer support and immediate access to therapy and psychiatry. Their precision mental health platform is specialized in women's mental health through all phases of life, including adolescence, pregnancy, postpartum, infertility, miscarriage, loss, and perimenopause. We deliver care by creating a specialized workforce to provide targeted psychotherapy, medication management + genetic testing, coaching, and holistic wellness.

Frayed Edges Foundation

Frayed Edges Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising money to offset the cost of counseling and other emotional wellness services in order to reduce stress and the effects of trauma in the community of Coweta County. They provide psychoeducation opportunities and activities that promote emotional health. Counseling that is funded by the foundation is in the form of individual, couples, family, and group sessions. Populations served by counseling efforts include children, adolescents, young adults, parents, and adults.

PSI-GA

PSI-GA promotes awareness, prevention, and treatment of maternal mental health issues related to childbearing. We provide training to providers, advocate for mental health support for families during the perinatal period and bring increased awareness of perinatal mental health across the state of Georgia.

Georgia Fund for Perinatal Mental Health

The Georgia Fund for Perinatal Mental Health is a community-based program that provides fully funded mental health care to perinatal families in Georgia. The Georgia Fund crowd-funds donations, matches parents with a vetted perinatal therapist, and pays directly for their therapy. So far they have provided 10 fully funded therapy sessions to 8 perinatal mothers in need – and for some, this support has been literally life-saving.

Their goal is to improve perinatal health outcomes and ensure health equity across Georgia, one parent at a time. Funds are available to anyone who lives in Georgia and: is pregnant; is postpartum up to 2 years; has experienced a miscarriage, stillbirth, infant loss, or termination in the past 2 years; has experienced infertility or undergone fertility treatment in the past 2 years; or is a non-birthing, step-, foster, or adoptive parents to a child under 2 years old. Priority is given to applicants who are uninsured or who have Medicaid.

The Georgia Fund is rooted in the practice of mutual aid, with the understanding that our state’s healthcare systems have failed to meet the primary mental health needs of moms and parents. Through crowdfunding donations and t-shirt sales, they aim to raise $50,000 for 50 perinatal moms and parents in Georgia to receive 10 fully funded telehealth therapy sessions – all via community-funded care. Every dollar raised goes directly toward paying for therapy for parents who have been unable to access support – due to either financial barriers or lack of qualified providers in their area.

The HMHBGA grant will allow them to provide 10 fully funded therapy sessions to 10 fund recipients from the Atlanta, Columbus, and Albany areas. For application info, please visit their website. Please follow them on Instagram as well!

Athens Parent Wellbeing

Athens Parent Wellbeing is a small, community-based organization utilizing a network of professional therapists, doulas, and peer volunteers to support a variety of emotional and educational needs of parents struggling with mental health concerns during pregnancy and postpartum in Athens and the surrounding counties.

HMHBGA is supporting parents who need access to professional, local therapy services specializing in perinatal mental health and doula services by funding some of Athens Parent Wellbeing’s financial assistance program - giving parents with financial constraints more equitable access to mental healthcare services.

It is their goal that these services will empower parents along their journey of parenthood and support them with the tools needed to be their best selves and raise healthy families.