New Horizons 21/22 ANNUAL REPORT
DEAR PARTNERS & FRIENDS Over the past year Baltimore Healthy Start embarked on several new horizons! In May of 2022 we were awarded the Pathways to Health Equity Grant from the Maryland Community Health Resources Commission. This 2.5 year $875,000 grant has allowed us to increase our surveillance and supportive services to pregnant and recently post-partum women with hypertension and Substance Use Disorders in the 21216 and 21217 zip codes in Baltimore City. In July of 2022 we received a Statewide Integrated Health Improvement Strategy (SIHIS) grant from the Maryland Department of Health Maternal Health Bureau. This 2.5 year $218,000 grant marks the first time in the organization’s over 30-year history that we have provided services outside of Baltimore City! BHS realizes that due to gentrification, many of the families in need of our services are being displaced to surrounding counties. With the SIHIS grant funding, BHS is partnering with the Chase Brexton clinic in Glen Burnie, Maryland to provide our home visiting, comprehensive case management, mother baby post-partum visits and other supportive services to families attending the clinic and living in various zip codes in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. In September 2022 BHS was one of only nine grantees across the nation to receive a Catalyst for Infant Health Equity Grant from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration. The framework for the 2.5-million-dollar fiveyear grant was done by the BHS Community Action Network with their Housing Truths project and action plan. The Catalyst project is a multi-pronged approach to improving housing in Baltimore City. With these funds BHS will address housing through our Housing University that is educating 40 tenants per year in securing and maintaining healthy housing; our Greenspace initiative which will
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develop and enhance greenspaces within the BHS service areas in both the East and West sides of Baltimore City; and our Landlord and Developer Engagement which will provide support, resources and help to shape positive tenant relations. In April 2023 with the support of several generous grantors BHS was able to host our First Annual Leaders in Black Maternal Health Awards Luncheon. In partnership with the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African American History, BHS honored six leaders in the Black Maternal Health space. Their work is important, especially in light of the Black Maternal Health crisis being faced in the United States. We were proud to have this vehicle to show our appreciation for their endeavors to support BIPOC birthing women and their families. These are just a few of the amazing new opportunities that BHS has recently acquired. We are honored to have the opportunity to provide the comprehensive support needed by our families; however, we cannot do it alone. We need your continued investment to sustain and enhance the services that we provide. Can we count on you? New Horizons needs support to flourish. On behalf of the Board of Directors, Leadership Team and Staff of Baltimore Healthy Start, thank you for your continued concern and investment in the health and well-being of the families we serve.
Lashelle Stewart
Who We Are
An over 30 year legacy of investment: Established in 1991, Baltimore Healthy Start has been investing in the health and well-being of Baltimore’s families by working to reduce infant mortality and poor perinatal health outcomes by providing direct services to the most vulnerable citizens in Baltimore- pregnant and post partum women and their families, living in socially, economically and medically disadvantaged communities. We are a leader in raising awareness on how social determinants of healthaccess to health insurance, education, job opportunities and a safe living environment- impact health and drive inequities in health outcomes.
Mission Statement
Baltimore Healthy Start, Inc. is committed to reducing infant mortality by utilizing a Life Course Perspective for improving the health and well-being of women and their families through the provision of comprehensive, supportive services in the communities where they live.
Middle East/Highlandtown 610 North Chester Street Baltimore, Maryland 21205 (Full Service)
Total Health Care 1501 Division Street Baltimore, MD 21217 (Total Health Care clients ONLY)
Forest Park/Walbrook 2300 Garrison Boulevard Baltimore, MD 21216
Where We Are
We work in communities with rates of infant mortality at least one and a half times the U.S. national average, and high rates for other adverse perinatal outcomes (e.g., low birth weight, preterm birth, maternal morbidity and mortality), in order to address the needs of high-risk women and their families before, during, and after pregnancy. Baltimore Healthy Start, Inc. promotes health and wellness by providing expectant and new mothers and their families with the health care and resources they need to nurture their children. We operate out of one full-service community center and two satellite locations.
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Opportunities to Serve in Different Capacities
PLACE In July 2022 The Maryland Department of Health (MDH) announced more than $865,000 in grant funding going to four organizations to expand evidence-based home visiting services to pregnant people and parents with young children.
The funding, made available by the Health Services Cost Review Commission to support the Statewide Integrated Health Improvement Strategy (SIHIS), is part of a three-year home visiting expansion that will provide more than $2.26 million in total grant funding between August 15, 2022, and June 30, 2025. WITH THE $218,000 AWARDED TO US, BHS IS PARTNERING WITH THE CHASE BRAXTON GLEN BURNIE HEALTH CENTER TO PROVIDE HOME VISITING SERVICES TO PREGNANT AND POSTPARTUM WOMEN IN ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY.
The program is an expansion of the BHS traditional home visiting and comprehensive case management model and also includes the Dyad Care mother/baby doctor appointments during the baby’s first year adapted from the model that BHS pioneered with Total Health Care in 2019. The primary population served by the project are Spanish Speaking families and families displaced from Baltimore City due to gentrification. BHS will serve Chase Brexton patients and families living five zip codes in the county. The project marks the first time that Baltimore Healthy Start has provided services outside of Baltimore City in the thirty-two-year history of the program.
HEALTH CONCERNS Baltimore Healthy Start,
Inc. is one of nine organizations who were awarded the Pathways to Health Equity Grant issued by the Community Health Resources Commission in May of 2022.
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“Pathways to Health Equity” is a new grant program that will provide $13.5 million for new grant investments in underserved communities to reduce health disparities. The funding is made available under recent legislation approved by the Maryland General Assembly, the Maryland Health Equity Resource Act of 2021. Pathways grants are place-based grant awards that will bring new grant resources and technical assistance to underserved communities. The Baltimore Healthy Start Pathways Project received $875,000 and will address disparities in hypertension, Substance Use Disorder (SUD), Low Birth Weight, and Severe Maternal Morbidity for pregnant and postpartum women and their infants living in the Baltimore Healthy Start census tracts within zip codes 21216 and 21217 in Baltimore City. The project will expand existing service coordination and home-visiting projects and facilitate access to primary care and substance use treatment through referrals. Interventions include hypertension education administered by trained CHWs, home BP monitoring and tracking, peer support groups, and care coordination addressing clients’ acute stressors and SDOH needs. The Baltimore Healthy Start FQHC partner for the project will be Total Health Care.
For tenants the Housing University will educate and work with 40 tenants a year and situate them in safe, healthy and affordable homes. SERVICES INCLUDE COURSES RELATED TO HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES, TENANTS RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES AND CREDIT, EVICTION PREVENT SUPPORT, WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT AS WELL AS HOUSING NAVIGATORS ASSIGNED TO ASSIST FAMILIES WITH COORDINATING AND ACCESSING ALL THINGS TO ASSIST THEM WITH ACHIEVING HOUSING GOALS.
The Catalyst for Infant Health Equity grant provides opportunities for Landlords and Developers to engage through informative symposiums. A dedicated Landlord Developer Liaison will host group sessions and offer resources to assist them in optimizing the safety and affordability of their properties while enhancing tenant relationships. Lastly, the Catalyst grant allows BHS to address the environment by partnering with other organizations to create and enhance greenspaces in the BHS services areas of Baltimore City. In
recent years there are several bodies of work and studies that provide evidence to support the rationale that exposure to green spaces can decrease infant mortality rates and contribute to the reduction of disparities in infant mortality rates across racial/ethnic groups. Healthy Start’s collaborative, the Community Action Network (CAN) developed the framework for the grant and facilitated root causes of housing instability and injustice through listening sessions with tenants and landlords; this birthed The Housing Truths Project and led to the grant submission and subsequent award. “The CAN collaborative analyzed root causes to a lack of safe and healthy housing and thankfully these solutions were funded” said CAN Coordinator and Project CoDirector Dana Gaskins, “Housing families in safe, properly inspected homes with such quality living conditions as air conditioning, no peeling paint, rodents or old carpet, can prevent asthma and respiratory conditions, lead poisoning, and injuries, keeping them out of the emergency rooms and from morbidity and mortality.”
SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH
In September 2022 BHS received the Health Resources Services Administration’s (HRSA) Catalyst for Infant Health Equity award of 2.5 million dollars, over five years, to address housing for pregnant women and families as it relates to the social determinants of health and birth outcomes. The project is a multi-pronged approach to improve housing in Baltimore City. Interventions include services for tenants, landlords/developers and the environment.
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Black Maternal Health Week
Black Maternal Health Week is recognized each year from April 11th until April 17th. Originally coined by Black Mamas Matter Alliance (BMMA), a Black-centered organization that specializes in maternal health-care advocacy for Black women. BMMA created the observance week in 2018 to address and underscore the disproportionate maternal health outcomes suffered by Black birthing people, who are three times more likely to die during pregnancy and postpartum compared to White women.
As we know, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequities experienced by marginalized communities within the healthcare system, specifically Black women. According to data from the Center for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC), the maternal mortality rate for Black women has increased by 26% since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The support of several grantors and sponsors, allowed BHS to partner with the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African-American Culture & History to host our First Annual Leaders in Black Maternal Health Awards Luncheon on April 11, 2023. We developed this awards luncheon to shine a light on the amazing contributions to Black maternal health by leaders within health6 | 21/22 ANNUAL REPORT
care and community services. The honorees of 2023 were: Deborah Frazier, Leadership Award, Delegate Jheanelle Wilkins, Advocacy Award, Alma Roberts, Visionary Award, Dr.Joia Crear-Perry, Champion Award, Florence Butler, Lillian Armstrong Service Award (the Lillian Armstrong Award is presented in honor and remembrance of a long time dedicated BHS Community Health Worker who succumbed to illness in 2020), and a special one-time only BHS Guru Award bestowed upon our very own Deputy Director and Chief of Quality Assurance and Clinical Affairs, Maxine Reed-Vance. Tonya Lewis Lee, award-winning film/television producer, writer, author, and advocate, joined us as our Keynote Speaker. In 2007, the US Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of Minority Health asked Tonya Lewis Lee to become a spokesperson for their infant mortality awareness raising campaign, “A Healthy Baby Begins With You.” Lee shares a heartbreaking realization she had while touring the United States within this role. She expresses, “I talked to lots of women…inevitably, someone would come up to me and tell me of a sister, cousin or friend who had passed away from childbirth. Initially you think, people die from childbirth complications, right? But, the number
of deaths I was hearing and how anecdotally it was, proved it was not a natural thing.” Tonya Lewis Lee emphasizes the need to look beyond the statistics. She told the audience, “There’s a real loss when a mother dies from childbirth complications. It’s a real loss to a community she is not a number. She is a human-being. A family has trauma for generations after that mother has passed away.”
Lee’s most recent project, Aftershock, a documentary film, explores the maternal health crisis for Black women through the stories of African-American fathers who were left to pick up the pieces when they lost their partners to birth/ postpartum complications caused by medical racism and negligence. Aftershock was screened on April 13, 2023 at our Community Film Screening in dedication of Black Maternal Health Week.
Additionally, we were joined by Maryland’s First Lady, Dawn Moore, an advocate for women, children, and healthy families. First Lady Dawn Moore, our Guest of Honor, opened her speech with chilling statistics on the current state of maternal mortality. “Maternal mortality rates for Black women have increased all across the country and Maryland ranks in the top half of all 50 states. Additionally, 1 in 10 babies are born prematurely in Baltimore City.” First Lady Dawn Moore sees herself in the stories of Black women who have lost their lives to preventable childbirth complications. “We need to be serious about addressing the crisis in Black maternal health. To solve a crisis, you must get to the source–Black women in our communities are enduring trauma everyday…trauma born of racism, trauma born of economic inequality, and trauma born of violence. We must provide more pathways of prosperity for our women and allow them to get the support that they need. Baltimore Healthy Start, Inc. is doing that every single day.” Our Mistress of Ceremonies was Ashley Etienne, CBS political correspondent and former press secretary/strategic advisor to several prominent politicians. With a successful turn-out, we were joined by a total of 168 attendees. Thank you to the Planning Committee: Kamira Armstrong, Teneele Bruce, Cheryl Gambrill, Terell Henson, Terrainia Hughes, Lechadora Miles, and Maxine Reed-Vance. 21/22 ANNUAL REPORT | 7
A Father’s Story: Justin Fathers are often expected to assume the role as the “protector” of the family once their child is born but many feel they lack the necessary skills and knowledge to do so. Due to a lack of paternal supportive services throughout the United States, men often have very few resources to help them overcome the many challenges of fatherhood. We are proud to be a maternal health organization that creates new pathways for fathers navigating the triumphs and challenges of fatherhood. We provide fatherhood services to those who are the partners of mothers enrolled in our supportive maternal health services and men who are independently parenting infants eligible for our services. Fatherhood engagement includes one-on-one and group based support to dads in a number of ways; including mentorship, workforce development, court advocacy, wellness check-ups, monthly groups, parenting and so much more.
FINANCIALS
2021-2022 BY THE NUMBERS
3,484,502.61
94.3
$
%
TOTAL REVENUE
of women and children had health insurance
100%
6% 11%
of women had a reproductive life plan
84.05%
reported father involvement
27%
during the pregnancy Justin Wilkes (32) a Baltimore native, is an active participant in our fatherhood services; he has been enrolled in supportive programming since 2021. Justin began working with our Fatherhood Specialist, Derek Lewis when his daughter, Alanna was born in 2022. Justin expresses gratitude for how the mentorship he received in the program has helped him in his fatherhood journey. “IT’S ALL ABOUT LEARNING HOW TO BE A FATHER, HOW TO DO THE NECESSARY THINGS THAT YOU NEED TO FOR YOUR CHILD NO MATTER WHAT, AND UNDERSTANDING HOW TO BALANCE THE STRIFE AND BATTLES.”
Justin has benefited from the full spectrum of Baltimore Healthy Start services available to dads. He has gotten one on one assistance which led to employment, group based 8 | 21/22 ANNUAL REPORT
support through the 24/7 Dad monthly meetings and housing assistance form our housing team. We offer housing support to low-income individuals/families in Baltimore City through our new Housing University Program, officially launched in May of 2023. When Wilkes was facing possible eviction, he worked with Housing University Director, Dawn Cobb. Cobb instructed Wilkes on how to advocate for himself in rent court; Justin Wilkes successfully argued and won his case. Wilkes later was able to find safe housing for himself and his children with the help of Housing Navigator, Toye Dixon. Justin is a proud father of 4. With a bright future envisioned for the lives of himself and his children, Justin states “I will own my own LLC and my own house. I want to have everything of my own to show my kids independence and teach them that anything in this world is possible.”
56%
84.60%
reported father involvement post partum
94.55%
of women reported abstaining from smoking during the third trimester
69.7
%
56%
6%
Federal
Local
27%
11%
State
Private
of moms reported initiating breast feeding
1,171 people served
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BOARD OFFICERS
Regina Webb
Board President Program Coordinator, Community Health Kaiser Permanente
Bridget Blount
Treasurer Integrated Data System Director Baltimore’s Promise
Whitney Kamirah
Secretary Strategic Healthcare Account Executive Confido
BOARD MEMBERS
Francine Childs
Baltimore City Health Department Designee Assistant Commissioner Bureau of School Health Baltimore City Health Department
Robert Oliver Atlas, MD
Chairman, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology Mercy Medical Center Maternal Fetal Medicine
Angela Burden, MA, BSN, RN Faith Community Nurse Coordinator FIMR Record Extractor B’more for Healthy Babies
Sarah Wallace
Director of Operations A Baltimore Girl’s Story
Terrance Lindsey
Community Health Worker Sisters Together and Reaching
Heather Ross
Health Insurance Specialist Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services
Jessica Jackson
Labor and Delivery Nurse Mercy Medical Center
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610 N. Chester St. Baltimore, MD 21205 410-675-2125 (phone) 410-327-6181 (fax) baltimorehealthystart.org