Membership

Starting in January 2023, a diverse network of members was recruited. While recruiting, MDH staff were focused on ensuring representation from rural, Black, Indigenous, and new immigrant families. The subcommittee has a steering committee comprised of 13 members. After the strategic plan has been created, six community action teams topics will be developed to implement the strategic plan.  

Members of the subcommittee are representative of the following categories:

• Maternal and Child Health Advisory Task Force Committee Representatives.
• Maternal Mortality Review Committee Representatives.
• Minnesota Perinatal Quality Collaborative Representatives.
• Community representatives that experience high rates of disparities including Black, other populations of color, new immigrants, refugees, rural communities.
• Health professionals, including OBs, midwives, pediatricians, behavioral health, community health workers, doula, etc.
• Tribal Nations and Urban Indian community members.
• Health Care system representatives.
• Payer and Insurance.
• Nonprofit or other community organizations.
• Local and State Agencies (Local Public Health, Department of Human Services, Children’s Cabinet).
• Professional Associations/Academia.
• Birthing people.
• Social workers.
• Family home visitors.
• Parents/Caregivers

Expectations

The expectations of the subcommittee are to:

• Center birthing people and their experiences in all decision making.
• Have leadership that includes community representative as a co-chair.
• Provide regular updates to the full Maternal & Child Health Advisory Task Force (MCHATF).
• Build on partner work underway; incorporate existing feedback/recommendations from community.
• Release a statewide perinatal strategic plan.
• Create action-oriented workgroups that focus on implementing the strategic plan.

Perinatal Health Innovation Grants

Five grantees were awarded funding in the spring of 2024. The grant period is from June 2024 – September 2025. For more information, please refer to the Minnesota Innovations in Perinatal Health Grant Memo.  

Community Feedback Phase

The subcommittee spent several months creating the draft strategic plan on perinatal health. Rather than creating this plan from scratch, the subcommittee built off and aligned existing efforts across state, county, and community level initiatives on perinatal health. Ten reports with over 300 recommendations were reviewed. After rounds of adapting, editing, and prioritization, the subcommittee created 13 draft recommendations. In late 2024 – early 2025, the community feedback phase will begin. The goal of this phase is to gather feedback on the strategic plan and to ensure that these recommendations are reflective of community members’ experiences. The feedback will be collected through three main methods: 1) survey; 2) guided conversations with subcommittee members’ organizations and networks; 3) community listening sessions.

Structure

The Perinatal Subcommittee is a subgroup of the Maternal and Child Health Advisory Task Force (MCHATF) and consists of a 13-member steering committee. There will be six community action teams created to implement the strategic plan. Recruitment for the CAT should begin early 2025.

Timeline

Phase One (January - July 2023)

• Hire internal staff.
• subcommittee membership development.

Phase Two (July - December 2023)

• Onboard external consultant to assist with aligning perinatal health priorities.
• Analysis of ten perinatal health reports to inform the strategic plan.

Phase Three (January – June 2024)

• Strategic plan development.
• RFP for perinatal health community-based organizations.

Phase Four (July – October 2024)

• Plan development for community feedback on strategic plan.
• Ongoing grants to community-based organizations.
• Plan development for community action teams for strategic plan implementation.

Phase Five (November 2024 – February 2025)

• Community feedback phase begins.  
• Ongoing grants to community-based organizations.  
• Continued planning of community action teams.  

Phase Six (Spring 2025 – September 2027)

• Dissemination of strategic plan.  
• Community action teams begin work.  
• Ongoing grants to community-based organizations.  

Subcommittee Members