Over the past few months, we’ve highlighted some of the newest Health Equity Fund (HEF) recipients. The HEF—which is administered by the Richmond and Henrico Public Health Foundation and supported by the City of Richmond and RHHD—announced its most recent round of funding last month. Recipients applied for dedicated funding in one of the HEF’s key focus areas, including substance use disorder, maternal and child health, and food access, among others. Applicants were selected in conversation with the Community Advisory Committee and RHPHF’s board.
One such recipient is Urban Baby Beginnings, a community-based support system and maternal health hub for pregnant folks and new parents. Founder Stephanie Spencer says that though the organization took its current form in 2015, its community roots extend back thirty years.
“Initially, we were an early childhood center,” she explains. “We had children that were coming in with needs for diapers, clothing, and food. And it wasn’t just the children in the center who needed access to items so they could be healthy—it was a more systemic issue.”
Phyllis Bradley ran the early childcare center and made the decision to transition the work into diaper provision in the mid-2000s, a few years before the National Diaper Bank Network (NDBN) got off the ground.
Diaper needs were significant during that time, and Stephanie says they’ve only become more acute. In 2023, NDBN found during their annual survey that 47% of families reported diaper insecurity. That means that almost 1 in 2 children don’t have access to the diapers they need. Diaper insecurity can lead to medical issues for the child and missed work or challenges paying other bills for caregivers—childcare centers require children to arrive with a fresh supply of diapers for the day.
While Urban Baby Beginnings is an NDBN partner organization—and one of only 15 programs within the network founded and operated by Black women—the organization’s reach extends beyond diaper provision. As a maternal health hub, Urban Baby Beginnings works with clients through their pregnancy and children ages 0-2.
“We go larger scale,” Stephanie says. “We understand that babies need diapers, and we also think about what it means to not have those provisions or to feel cared for, or to be someone who wants to be able to provide those things but can’t. And that’s really what the diaper represents: breaking down the barriers that families experience in order to have healthier outcomes. A diaper is one piece of that.”
Urban Baby Beginnings provides doula services, prenatal education, lactation support, community resource referrals, and early childhood programming. Increasingly, they track mental health trends and rehospitalization rates for new parents to connect people to care more quickly. Stephanie says that directing more attention toward mothers’ health and well-being is a critical step for making sure that their children also receive care: “children thrive best when they’re in healthy environments, which means that they have to have a healthy model,” she explains.
As someone who’s lived many lives herself, Stephanie understands the importance of adjusting services and approach to meet the changing context. She spent years in banking and fraud investigation before training as a registered nurse, which took her to home health, neurology, and postpartum newborn care. “I’ve been all kinds of places and that’s so important, because when you follow people throughout their lifespans, you can really see where the disparities exist,” she reflects. “What I know is that it’s key to ensure that the family unit is supported earlier on so that you don’t see these long-term intergenerational impacts of a lack of care and support.”
Over the years, Urban Baby Beginnings has expanded its work into Newport News, Norfolk, and Petersburg: “We try to build and create trusting relationships,” Stephanie says. “Before you do anything else, you need to make sure you have the buy-in and support of the community to do so.”
With Health Equity Fund support, Urban Baby Beginnings is partnering with community, faith, and educational organizations across Richmond to host monthly diaper distributions and social gatherings, which will provide participants with diapers, food supplies, and referrals to care services.
Stephanie encourages people to learn more about Urban Baby Beginnings’s mission and offerings by visiting the website; you can find information about resources and learn how to volunteer. Continuing to educate and learn is a key element of the structural change Stephanie hopes to create, and she says Richmond is well positioned to make it happen: “There’s a huge concentration of communication in the central region. There’s a lot happening with legislation and advocacy efforts and voices are really heard in this space. People feel empowered with information, and it’s pushing them to say, hey, we need to look at this system differently.”
Return to our blog for conversations with other HEF recipients looking to make changes in big systems, including Daily Planet Health Services, Virginia Prison Birth Project, and Gateway Community Health.
