Delivering change in the system: supporting those who face inequalities

One of the biggest challenges for maternity, perinatal, and neonatal services is supporting the groups of people who face health inequalities to access these vital services. Doulas Without Borders and Bliss will share their journeys, covering their designs that have delivered routes to impact, insights, challenges they’ve faced, methodologies they use and how they overcame knotty processes. You’ll hear about the resulting improvements for those accessing the service.

Doulas Without Borders started in 2019 as a grassroots response to a systemic crisis in maternity. From the start, their methodology has been based on the principle of responsiveness. As doulas, they are trained to listen and respond, so this is how they work as an organisation and a collective. Their approach to their clients’ needs is sensitive, reflective, and often somewhat ​‘outside the box’.

Bliss champion the rights of every baby born premature or sick in the UK to receive the best care. They support families, campaign for change, support professionals, and enable life-changing research. Bliss was founded in 1979 by a group of concerned parents who discovered that no hospital had all the equipment nor the trained staff it needed to safely care for premature and sick babies. Now, it’s the leading UK charity for the 90,000 babies born needing neonatal care every year.

During Doulas Without Borders talk, you will:

• Gain a greater understanding of Doulas Without Borders’ ethos and processes. 
• Find out about the organisations’ principles as they discuss how they’ve approached the challenges they’ve faced as they’ve grown.
• Learn more about how a small organisation with little funding supports women across the UK.
• Find out how to become a future referrer, or be involved in other ways.
• Have the opportunity to ask questions throughout the presentation and discuss the topics raised with other attendees.

During Bliss’ talk, you will:

• Learn about Bliss’ Mental Health Project. They’ll cover how they tackled challenges, what’s worked well, and what they’ve learned.
• Gain insight on how the Mental Health Project led to the development of a health care professional-focused suite of learning materials: ​‘The Psychological Impact of a Neonatal Stay Up’.
• Find out more about how they created tailored and universal information and content to support neonatal families’ mental health.
• Gain a greater understanding of the difficulties that came up during this project and strategies which were used to overcome them.
• Have the opportunity to ask the team questions.

Grace Coles, Referrals Lead at Doulas Without Borders. 

Grace has worked with Doulas Without Borders for 4 years, in volunteer coordination, referrals, and as a general manager with oversight across the organisation. She has a background as a trained doula and teacher, giving her insight into working with families across the country from different backgrounds and perspectives. 

Peter Bradley, Director of Services at Bliss

Peter’s previous roles included working as Head of Information and People Development at Citizens Advice Merton and Lambeth, and senior management roles with Sova, a charity supporting people with convictions. He has an MA in International Development and worked in volunteer programming roles at leading development charity VSO.

Madinah Thompson, Senior Information and Content officer at Bliss

Madinah is responsible for the creation and management of parent-facing information produced to support neonatal families. Prior to working at Bliss, she was a digital communications consultant at various, Black-led organisations with a focus on equity-driven community-led projects.