An Open Letter to the Lincoln Community

After much trepidation, consideration, and sadness, a consensus has been made to put an indefinite pause on the project known as Sycamore Family Resource Center.  Although it's been an interesting and informative year of starts and stops, it turns out to be the next logical step for us to take a big step back, reassess, and focus our energies in other ways that benefit our community.

This decision is in no way a reflection of the importance of providing diverse resources for families in Lincoln. I started this project as an opportunity to address the need for resources for expecting families who had little access to alternatives.  Sycamore Center started with a great vision of celebrating the families in our community, as Lincoln has a beautiful variety of people with different needs.  By building on this vision, I came to learn that my passion for community and women’s health is most effective in focused, collaborative projects.  I had the wonderful chance to train with the Office of Women’s Health as a Community Health Worker, and I am excited to build on my experience as a birth worker and activist for health equity and reproductive rights.  I’m grateful for the learning experience this has been and hope to continue working with you all in the future.

It would be a shame not to shed all of our light on the amazing investment of time, encouragement, and money we've received from our community.  A huge thanks to:

• Alene Swinehart for the beautiful space to dream this project up in
• Chris Funk and Ann Seacrest for meeting with me early on to share their expertise
• Olivia Garza, Carol Dicks, Kitty Fynbu, Julia Slagle and the lovely Lauren Turner for their organizational support
• the ladies at A Novel Idea for knowing their stuff
• Adam Hintz at Meadowlark Coffee & Espresso for the ever-abundance of free coffee
• Alex Svoboda for talking about herbs
• Katie Briggs for her lovely graphic designs skills
• Elbeth Magilton for her legal knowledge and direction
• Eric Shanks whose experience is invaluable for creating change
• Jean Krejci for being a total joy and inspiration to work with and keeping the fire alive
• Hilary Stohs Krause for rocking the universe
• Gerardo Mesa, HoneyBee & Hers, All Young Girls Are Machine Guns, and Black Cohosh for providing the spell-binding entertainment for our benefit and making it a success
• the exquisite Samantha McCulloch with Hannaya Healing
• Trina Derickson for reading Tarot
• Shannon Claire with B-Sides Photography  
• all of the dozens of donors for our silent auction and raffle, which were too numerous to mention- your donations were an incredible act of generosity and faith.

A few loose ends that need to be tied up include our finances- we have a balance of roughly $350 that we need to make a decision about.  If you consider yourself a stakeholder in this community bucket, please access our Facebook page to find a poll to help us decide how to spend it.  We will post it on August 31, 2012, and make a final decision for these funds on September 15, 2012.  

Also, we have a collection of feminist and health literature, homeschooling supplies, and children's books and toys that will be still be accessible to the Lincoln community by contacting me, Stephanie Dank, at 402-309-0470, or emailing Olivia Garza at electricgarza@gmail.com.  

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us through our email: sycamorefrcenter@gmail.com.  This email address will remain active until January 1st, 2013.  If you are interested in staying up to date about my work as a Community Health Worker and Doula, follow my blog: motherfront.blogspot.com

Many blessings,
Stephanie Dank

Disparities in the Doula Model of Care

After the Community Health Worker training that ended today, I'm faced with the reality of how many gaps there are in not just health care, but doula care.  Health disparities are everywhere, and there are amazing organizations and agencies out there gathering funding to provide free preventative health care to the under- and uninsured.  When it comes to doula care, however, access is limited to those who can pay out-of-pocket.  Painfully ironic is the fact that those who can afford it are in need of it the least.  

That's not to say that the privileged pregnancies that are on the receiving end of a doula do not deserve it.  But populations, particularly teens and women of color, who see the most health disparity and the worst maternal and infant health outcomes, are the most underserved by doulas.  How do we, as doulas, approach this?  Many of us offer our services for much less than what we should be making even for our full-paying clients.  If we have a particular interest in working to solve health disparities and applying social justice to our work, we work for next to nothing.  I've done many births where, in the end, I was getting paid a shocking hourly wage for expert advise, 24 hour on-call availability for weeks on end, and physically strenuous overnight hours- much less than minimum wage in the end.  This is not rare.  Ask the doula next to you if this is the case and you will likely get an emphatic "YES".  

What is the root of this?  My belief is that it stems from doula care existing in a for-profit model (as much of health care is, but that's another blog post).  That doulas have settled on charging their clients directly undercuts the potential of doula care- applying the benefits of doula care on populations that see the worst outcomes in order to make the most amount of change.  Taking a new approach is critical in improving outcomes.  But it will require doulas rejecting the for-profit model that so much of us have accepted.  We need to explore new options in receiving funding for our work, to generate public and private interest in doula care from stakeholders in maternal and infant health, and to work together, and not in competition like so much of the for-profit model encourages, to make our work sustainable for not only our clients but ourselves.

We know the benefits of our work.  It's time for doulas to get out of our comfort zones, advocate for those benefits, and start creating change.  We are at the forefront of improving outcomes with our unique advantage to spend time educating and empowering patients.  A public health approach to doula care is desperately needed if we actually want to see our work make a difference.

(If you know of a fabulous community doula project, or have seen doulas used by public health agencies, please leave some information in the comments!!)

Getting It Done

Wow!!  Inspired today by so much awesomeness.  Women rule.

I'm starting to see myself as an instrument of change.  The good news is that I don't have to play the whole band at once!  Activist birth work is becoming more reachable in my mind- the training I'm at now is empowering me with lots of tools to use to keep me focused, connected, and effective.

The training is through an extension of HHS's (Health and Human Services) Office of Women's Health called the Women's Health Leadership Institute (hell yea), and I got here because I'm a doula.  It's part of an initiative to introduce more Community Health Workers (CHWs) to the health field.  We get to directly interface with the community around us and have an impact on health disparities based on gender, socioeconomic status, and race.  The training group is about one third cornfed Midwestern ladies like myself, one third African American (a couple of ladies in maternal health in Omaha), and the rest are Latina.  There's a young mama who's an educator at Planned Parenthood, lots of women older than my mother, and the trainers are both cute and funny.  At the end of Thursday, I'm not going to want it to end.  We're all bringing so much to the table and learning so much at the same time.  I already have ideas churning on what my project will be (we all have to carry out and document some community health project once we're finished with the training).  What a blessing it's been so far (even if the internet at the hotel ain't free).

This kind of sisterhood can't happen enough.  This is how this shit's gonna get done.

This Self-Assuredly Strange Life

(In this post, I'm including pictures from a dreamy photo shoot I did with some lovely Denver ladies back in March outside of Red Rocks, as promised.  Enjoy.)

The lifestyle I've always dreamed of is finally, and strangely, taking shape.  A nomadic path bridging city and country life, uprooted in order to respond to any breeze or need.  I've been sleeping in a cozy four-person tent, bought cheap from Walmart, in my dear friend Amy's backyard.  Picture her city lot full of fruit trees, elderberry bushes, volunteer vegetable plants and perennial herbs surrounding a fire pit, just before entering the back half of wooded territory, which I have made my little grotto.  I've hung my hammock, although it's much too humid to avoid the mosquitoes.  I have a basket for linens, a crate of clothing, a drum, a book, and a rain fly.  My cooking tools and supplies are up by the house and my bulk herbs are in the garage.  The rest of my necessities are packed down in my Chevy Venture.  

Things as a medical professional are exploding.  I was just accepted to the Office of Women's Health and Women's Health Leadership Institute's Community Health Worker (CHW) training, which admittedly changes everything.  It impacts my doula work in a huge way, as CHWs are essentially public health "doulas" in a more broad sense in that they provide education and advocacy for a variety of different health conditions and populations (not just pregnancy and birth).  This means that I will be able to widen my services to include many aspects of reproductive health.  CHWs also have an interesting and critical role as their work places a heavy emphasis on culturally competent care- that is, providing it themselves as well as enforcing it from medical care providers.  Part of this particular training is getting set up with a supervisor who helps the trainee execute a community project in their home community.  So Sycamore Center will be heavily impacted by this, and it may even prove to give shape to the organization completely.  

I've also started my volunteerism with the American Red Cross.  I have distant dreams of being deployed in the face of natural disaster to set up mobile birth units, and I figure that climbing their ladder and getting trained in mass food distribution as well as shelter management is the best free way to do it (no degree!!  woo!!).

 

And I've also met the man of my dreams.  There's no other way to put that, really.  He feeds my vision of escaping the troubles of the world to high atop a Black Hill-side, feeding my goats and staring up at the clouds with nothing but the wind to hear.  Waiting patiently for the next mother to go into labor as I cultivate my herb garden, smoke out a hive of bees, or help him haul in the next project.  He calls me his goddess, Nefer, and perhaps someday I will be his queen, yelling at kids from the porch he built.  Through all of the hard work I'm doing these days, I'm walking on Cloud 99.

But tonight, with all of this spiraling around me (and not out of control, mind you, but part of the ever-changing cycle of my life which right now is busy, busy, busy), I am trying to stay mindful of the simple things.  Sage infusing in white wine vinegar.  Slow eating.  Choosing to stay in one place for the moment.  Walking barefoot on the earth.  I need that reminder to be here now, but being on the right path makes it easier to give to myself.  

I've never felt this self-assured of my own joy.  It's pretty wonderful.

trees of fate

i may move out

without a trace

of life

before

i knew you

out of the mound

the hole in the ground

dug before

the truth

came out

i may travel

miles and miles

just to fill my 

senses

with the sounds and 

scents of time

before

the trees of fate

had fallen

before this life 

took me away 

from you

and put me in

a place

where truth was found.

Overcoming My Fear of Rejection, or Accepting Acceptance

The past day or so has been rough.  It's hard to know where to start with this enormous project, where to most effectively spend my energy (and other funds), and sometimes it feels like I'm just leaking out the sides.  A wave of depression came rolling through, which always makes my ears prick up a little, listening for the sound of intuition, of something out of place.  I come to my senses.  I journaled and broke through the crying barrier last night, so there's not a terrible amount to divulge.  But the issues of rejection, acceptance, and unconditional self-love need to be spoken on.  

For as long as I can remember, I've been caught in a cycle of desperately needing acceptance due to rejection I felt as a child growing up with an incarcerated and addicted father, pushing people away who know their limitations of what they can and can't give me, furthering my sense of rejection, thus my deep need for acceptance.  This has played out in every relationship, several friendships, and my connection to myself.  


I've attempted to open my heart recently, only to become aware of this stuff once again.  Natalie writes an amazing piece on this over at Baggage Reclaim:

From the moment that someone decides that they no longer want you or that they no longer value you or the relationship enough to want to try and they make the decision to opt out, you need to start working towards not wanting them either.

Wanting people that don’t want you, nevermind respect, value, love, or care about you, is a surefire sign that you have lost your way.

I definitely felt lost yesterday.  To lay it out, I've got several fishing poles out on the dating scene, and the way I've been feeling has made me want to pull them all in.  I'm not sure if I can go through it anymore- putting myself out there- not until I've got some things straight.  

Natalie keeps going, though, offering some harsh truths:

You’re too busy feeling the pain of your own bruised ego that you have lost sight of reality.

I’m not even convinced that you truly want him; you just need him to want you.

Really, the whole thing is worth reading.  

Mostly, I'm worried about the fear of doing this again.  I don't want to be emotionally unavailable.  I get what she says about only investing time and energy in people that value me, not detract from my value.  It's about manifesting relationships/friendships through my own sense of worth instead of seeking it from other people looking to play by their own rules.  Vulnerability is scary, though.  But as we know from Brene Brown's TED Talk, people with higher senses of self worth fear vulnerability less.  Actually, they see it as essential to a deeper sense of connection.







This is all part of my recovery.  Please feel free to share with me where you are at in yours.  We can only give what we have, and right now I've got some big balls of wax to melt before I can make that really luscious calendula cream that everybody keeps asking me about.

The Invisible Mother

Today I discovered the photography technique of the hidden mother, used to capture only their children and babies.  So strange.

 

Look at more photos here, and here.