1-415-470-6207
info@sisterweb.org
1912 Keith Street
San Francisco, CA 94124
Mission: SisterWeb, a network of culturally congruent community doulas and birth workers from and for Black, Pacific Islander and Latina/o/x communities, works to dismantle racist health care systems, strengthen community resilience, and advance economic justice for birthing families and doulas in San Francisco.
“With SDDT funding, SisterWeb helped Black and Brown families to have safer and healthier births, supported Black and Brown doulas in their careers, and provided leadership opportunities that included higher wages with increased responsibilities to Black and Brown women. All of this increased the representation of Black and Brown communities in San Francisco’s maternal care system.”
– Marna Armstead, SisterWeb Executive Director
A Powerful Web: Leading with values and impacting birthing people, their families, their communities and the health care system
SisterWeb’s work is grounded in supporting community- led and culturally relevant work, building strong collaborations and partnerships, eliminating structural inequities, and prioritizing results and long-term impacts.
Doulas throughout the US are typically employed as contractors, and get paid by the birth. SW, offers salaried positions with benefits and professional development opportunities that support women of color to obtain and retain jobs as professional birth workers in San Francisco. SW doulas and staff are from the communities that they serve, and most doulas are bilingual and bicultural–meaning that they are able to provide culturally congruent care to their clients. By hiring staff and doulas from communities most burdened by historic inequities, providing stable salaries, and offering professional development opportunities, SW is directly supporting community-led and culturally relevant work and contributing to economic justice. The organization does this by lifting up community wisdom, intentionally addressing inequities in the health care system, and by prioritizing long- term results and impacts through their evaluation efforts. And pregnant people and their families benefit from SW’s services that are typically too expensive to even consider.
In addition to providing benefited employment and doula services to SF community members most burdened by inequities, they are also contributing to longer-term systemic change by providing prenatal care trainings to healthcare providers, participating in maternal/child health- focused collaborations, and supporting legislative change to improve birth outcomes. SW staff, for example, are part of a Champion Dyad program in partnership with the Labor and Delivery Units in all five hospitals in San Francisco. Through this program, a SisterWeb staff member partners with a doctor, nurse, and/or midwife “champion” at the hospital to ensure equitable treatment during pregnancies and births of Black, Latinx, and Pacific Islander pregnant people. This work is critical to creating a more equitable health care system and achieving positive birth outcomes for families who are traditionally marginalized by the health care system in general and during their birthing experiences in particular.
To track progress, SW is implementing a robust evaluation plan that aligns with the Results Based Accountability framework and uses Compyle software. The organization has identified goals, outcomes and metrics that are used to report on their work, identify lessons learned, and make program and organizational improvements to grow and become sustainable.
SW was recipients of the SDDT Healthy Communities Grant from 2019 – 2023.