Denver Health – Doula Program
Denver Health recognized that doulas provide positive impacts on health outcomes for peripartum patients and their infants. To support and increase patients’ access to doula care, the Denver Health Doula Program (DHDP) was developed and implemented. The program quickly moved from a volunteer-based doula program into an innovative, sustainable hospital-supported program. The DHDP program increases access to doula training to underrepresented community members through high-quality training programs.
Successes include the following:
- Advanced from an exclusively volunteer-based doula program in 2016, to an employed service of 23 staffed doulas
- Trained more than 100 community members to be doulas, and many pursued careers in health care
- Scholarships offered to community members
- Approved as a training organization through Colorado’s Healthcare Policy and Financing (HCPF) Maternal-Child Health Department
- Phoebe Montgomery, director of doula services, was selected as an advisory board member to aid in the development of doula benefit for HCPF’s Maternal Child Health Department
To learn more about this program, please Phoebe Montgomery, director of doula services at [email protected].
For additional information, access video here.
