Perinatal Childcare Programs
Access to safe, affordable, culturally congruent childcare is a reproductive justice issue.
GALS, in partnership with The Maternal Health Equity Collaborative, is excited to offer free, short-term, culturally congruent, high quality in-home childcare, for Black Mamas in Central Texas during the perinatal period. The purpose of this program is to address barriers, such as childcare, that block access to receiving the medical and mental health care necessary for having a successful and safe pregnancy, birth, and postpartum experience.
Childcare is Community Care
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The childcare program began in 2021 to help minimize the number of children put under the care of CPS — simply due to no other adult able to provide care in the event of postpartum medical emergency or birth. We (the collaborative organizations making up MHEC) knew there had to be another, community centered, solution. Our intention was also to include childcare as wrap around care, in conjunction with doula support, to provide families with a more full and encompassing net of whole family care. We recognize childcare as a part of reproductive justice, and believe families deserve access to safe, affordable, quality childcare.
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Childcare support is availalble to folks working with one of the Maternal Health Equity Collaborative partners.
Want to join the childcare program, but not yet a participant in one of our partner organizations?
Click the links to visit their websites and learn about how to become involved.
Appointment &
On Call Childcare
Appointment: In-home or on location childcare for Black and Brown families, up to 3 hours for children whose parent is attending a medical or doula related appointment, such as prenatal, baby well-visit, postpartum follow-up, doula visit, or therapy.
On-call: Childcare for Black and Brown families who are giving birth or navigating a perinatal related medical emergency.
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Care is provided to allow support for you attend and fully engage in health and mental health care.
Care may be provided in home, in the clinic/ dr’s office, or at the hospital.
Care can be provided to both the newborn and your other children.
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Appointment based care is scheduled for 3-4 hours.
Emergency Care is offered in longer increments. Care dependent on specialist availability. There is the potential for a gap in care, and we will ask for who else in your community may be able to fill gaps if needed.
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Our specialists focus on the following when providing care are:
constant supervision, feeding, diaper changes, developmentally appropriate activities, sleep support, care communication, light child related tidying if time allows
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All of our childcare specialists…
have previous childcare experience
CPR/First aid certified
background checked
complete childcare training
complete anti racism training
participate in professional development throughout the year
are paid thriving wages
See who is on the team here.
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Apply for care, or call the on call hotline for emergency support.
Complete pre-services evaluation if applicable
Complete intake call with our care coordinator
Receive match email with specialist + care details
CARE BEGINS!
Postpartum Respite Childcare
Childcare for children whose parents is placed on bedrest, immediate postpartum, or has limited, or no childcare support during the perinatal period. This short term, in home, recurring respite care is to support Black + Latiné families with infants 0-12mo, who are also participants in one of our childcare program partner organizations.
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Care is to allow support for you to rest & heal in postpartum
Parent(s) may leave home, but must return prior to the end of care
Care can be provided to both the newborn and your other children
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Care will last one month, with potential for an extension - depending on program capacity.
Visits are 3 hours long and happen 1-3x per week at recurring days and times.
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Our specialists focus on the following when providing care are:
constant supervision, feeding, diaper changes, developmentally appropriate activities, sleep support, care communication, light child related tidying if time allows
-
All of our childcare specialists…
have previous childcare experience
CPR/First aid certified
background checked
complete childcare training
complete anti racism training
participate in professional development throughout the year
are paid thriving wages
See who is on the team here.
-
Complete pre-services evaluation
Complete intake call with our care coordinator
Receive match email with specialist + care details
CARE BEGINS!
Group Based Childcare
A newer offering, GALS is now offering group-based childcare for community partners and organizations who wish to increase their accessibility to care for Black and Brown families. This care is offered at a sliding scale cost to the organization hosting care. If you are interested in making your service, conference, educational course or community event more accessible, reach out! We would love to connect.