- Coming up on "American Black Journal."

The maternal mortality rate is on the rise here in Michigan.

We're gonna talk about the impact on women of color and what's being done to reverse this disturbing trend.

Plus, we're gonna tell you about a new program that gives Michigan students a unique summer experience.

Stay where you are.

"American Black Journal" starts right now - [Narrator] From Delta faucets to Behr Paint.

Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

Support also provided by the Cynthia & Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit PBS.

- [Narrator] DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit PBS.

Among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan focused giving.

We support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Learn more at dtefoundation.com.

- [Narrator] Also brought to you by Nissan Foundation.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.

(techno music) - Welcome to "American Black Journal."

I'm Stephen Henderson, your host.

An in-depth report by the Detroit News produced through the New York and Michigan Solutions Journalism Collaborative is bringing attention to the high number of maternal deaths across the country, including right here in Michigan.

The data is especially concerning for women of color.

According to the state, Black mothers are more than 75% more likely than white mothers to die during pregnancy, while giving birth, or within a year after the pregnancy ends.

Here's my conversation with Dawn Shanafelt, who is director of the Maternal and Infant Health Division in the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

Dawn, welcome to American Black Journal.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- Yeah.

So, you know, I wanna start with us talking about why this problem exists.

You know, we live in the most developed nation on Earth, an extremely wealthy nation, and yet you have these numbers that show that having a child is dangerous and dangerous to a lot of people.

As I see it, it's an access problem and it's an investment problem.

I'm curious about your take on why the wealthiest nation on the planet is struggling with this.

- So, you're absolutely correct regarding your assessment that it's an access, an investment problem.

I also think that access needs to be coupled with the highest quality care and respectful care.

Simply having access to prenatal postpartum care and ongoing medical and social support isn't enough.

It needs to be, as I said, the highest quality, respectful, and aligned with what pregnant and postpartum families tell us that they need.

In addition, I think the lack of investment or addressing the challenge up until the recent years really speaks volumes to the populations that's impacted the most.

Right?

We're speaking of women and Black and brown women.

- So that is indicative of the challenges that our country faces as a result of how it was created and built.

- Yeah, yeah.

One of the interesting things from this report is also, the number of women who die in the first year after delivering a baby.

And that's something that I'm not sure a lot of people know about or understand.

Can you talk about why that happens and how that's related to prenatal deaths?

- So the period following pregnancy or immediately thereafter, the postpartum period is a critical time, and it's often coined the fourth trimester.

And that's because so many potential things could happen during that time.

As a person's body gears up to be pregnant, it takes time for that process to unwind.

Right?

And as a society, our focus at the time of delivery immediately shifts to the infant, which is extremely important.

Right?

The infant health and wellbeing is important, but that shift shifts away from the person who just had a baby.

And so we know that that first 42 days following pregnancy and even up to a year after, there's a critical time of potential complication.

And really, to frame it positively a time when support is needed.

This is an important time of transition where we need to be wrapping our arms around the entire dyad and family unit.

- Yeah, yeah.

Of course, the numbers here are horrible universally, but as you point out, they're even worse when you're talking about Black and brown women.

You know, that's maybe not surprising given the inequalities that exist elsewhere in our society.

But talk about how, I mean, the difference here is just so stark and so dramatic.

There almost seems as if there's something else driving it, not just the standard inequality.

- So I think it's multifactorial in that the root causes are systemic racism, the intersectionality that I mentioned, the lack of focus and support, and then really ultimately, not respecting and listening to patients.

We hear time and time again where Black women tell us they knew something was wrong.

Something didn't seem right.

And they're, you know, expert knowledge.

They're within themselves as expert knowledge.

That assessment is disregarded.

And I think that we need to also think about the fact that the poor outcomes are perpetuated before and after entry into the hospital or healthcare setting for delivery.

And it isn't a one-time occurrence.

It's an ongoing buildup of interactions that result in poor outcomes.

And then in addition to that, I believe that it's really necessary to, again, listen or respond accordingly, and then also focus on accountability and understanding that the patient is in the driver's seat.

Or if it's outside of the healthcare setting for a home birth or in a freestanding birth center.

But the individual who's delivering a child should be at the forefront.

And oftentimes, that isn't the case.

And then last comment I'll make regarding this is the fact that the systems that were built are exclusionary.

- Yes.

- They were not built to be inclusive to Black and brown women, and black and brown people.

And I think we really need to center our families and acknowledge that, and not only history, but the current reality.

- Yeah.

And so, one of the kind of frustrating things about this is that, of course we know how to turn these numbers in a different direction.

We know what people need and we know how to do it.

And there are all kinds of success stories from programs that I've read about and seen where just the effort, just putting in the effort to make sure someone has access to healthcare during this time changes the numbers, you know, appreciably.

So I wanna talk about what you think solutions look like.

Is it just a matter of committing to doing what we know needs to be done?

- I think that it's more than simply committing.

I think that there's multiple levels of acknowledgement that need to happen.

And along with that acknowledgement, it goes further.

You need action to align line with that.

And so the solutions lie within the people that we serve.

I'm obviously a public health person, a nurse bureaucrat.

If we listen to the people that we serve, the solutions are there.

Families will tell us exactly what is needed, exactly where the barriers are, what challenges need to be removed, and we need to be responsive.

And I think that systems level change needs to happen.

Often, there's been a focus on more of a medical model focusing on people.

As if there's a personal challenge that needs to be addressed.

A pregnant person needs to change themselves when in reality, they're immersed in the systems of challenge.

But then also, I don't wanna be completely negative, focus on the positive, right?

The birth is a beautiful time for families.

And I think that hope and that ripe that people should be afforded needs to be the ultimate focus.

So as far as solutions, there have been multiple solutions implemented that are creating amazing change.

The Michigan Doula Initiative.

So valuing, honoring, raising up the doula profession that's been around for hundreds of years and has proven effective.

Things such as centering pregnancy.

When you bring people together during the prenatal and postpartum period in a sense of community, that support, that human relationship should never be underestimated.

And programs such as centering put the patient in the driver's seat.

They're leading their care.

And in addition to that, like I said, systems level change, policy change, understanding that that fourth trimester is so important.

And that's why extending postpartum coverage is important.

You know, the pregnancy may have ended, but that period continues.

And imposing barriers such as lack of access to healthcare is something that we can remove.

And only as we move forward, but removing those barriers.

But I really think that acknowledging that the negative impact of the social drivers or social determinants of health are the result of systems that were created for them to be there.

So I think that we need to acknowledge that and move forward in revamping and rebooting and altering systems so that humankind is centered.

Which was really the heart of the solution.

- Yeah, yeah.

Well, Dawn Shanafelt, that's the time we have.

I really appreciate you being here with us on "American Black Journal."

- Thank you so much.

And I'm honored to have the time to talk with you.

- Thousands of K-8 students in Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties are getting a chance to experience quality out-of-school time this summer.

United Way for Southeast Michigan and the Ballmer Group have launched Summer Discovery, a free learning program that provides academic and enrichment activities at more than 100 locations across our region.

The goal is to help students reduce learning loss over the summer.

I learned more about the program from Jeff Miles, United Way's vice president of Community Impact and Jametta Lilly, who is CEO of Detroit Parent Network.

Jeff, I'm gonna start with you.

Tell me about this program.

It is for kids K-8 and I think every parent who would hear about this would get a smile on their face about the idea of not losing what your kids learn in one school year over the summer before the next school year.

We all worry about that all the time.

- And having a safe place for them to go, let's not forget about that as well.

But no, this is for rising kindergarten through eighth graders.

So those going into first grade and ninth grade.

Summer Discovery, it's a great partnership between the Ballmer Group, United Way, and Building Impact, who's a national partner who's helped implement this program in New York City and Indianapolis and have been great helping us get this set up and Wayne, Oakland, Macomb here.

But yeah, it's really about preventing that summer learning loss, addressing some of the gaps that we see in our educational scores across the states and is really geared at providing both academic enrichment and in other enrichment like sports, music, arts, STEM activities like robotics and coding and given children really, again, that safe place to go this summer and really help prevent that summer slide.

- Yeah.

So I can remember as a kid here in Detroit, you spent summers at the rec center, right?

You spent summers at the rec center on the tennis courts or on the basketball court, whatever they had there in the pool.

And you would go there in the morning and you would stay all day, right?

You would go home at five or six at night and they would feed you lunch.

I mean, it really was the place that everybody could kinda be, and there was lots of stuff to do there, of course.

Talk about though, how different, I mean, that's 40 years ago.

Let's talk about how different this kind of programming looks in 2024 than it would've when I was that age.

- Yeah, no, and absolutely, that's the kind of experience we're trying to replicate and augment again, through that academic curriculum.

But this is really about meeting families and schools and communities where they're at and giving them some say in the types of programming that's gonna make sense for the families that are gonna come and visit their programming.

So there's a lot of flexibility in how schools and community-based organizations can implement this.

We can provide transportation now as part of the funding that Ballmer has provided for this partnership.

And again, really trying to both do the English language arts and the mathematics, but make it a fun and engaging experience.

So it is eight hours a day, they are on onsite in person and schools and community-based organization's had to commit to at least 20 days.

So again, a good chunk of the summer geared at both academics and all those fun things that we like to do as children ourselves.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

And Jametta, in Detroit, of course, as I point out, you know, we used to have rec centers don't have as many and it's always a struggle to try to find things for our kids to do in the summer.

Talk about the impact of this kind of programming here.

- Well, I think, so first off, if I could take a little liberty there, you mentioned about when you were in school.

So when you and I both were in school 100 years ago when we were just like, you know, just before we were born, all throughout Detroit, we had wonderful afterschool programs.

We had recreation centers that were open.

And so it's really this result of not only the investment that Ballmer and United we are making, but also that happened back in the legislature, people recognizing that all children should have access to quality out-of-school time experiences.

And having good education and good out-of-school time shouldn't be dictated by the ZIP Code that you live in.

So one of the things that I know our parents have really been expressing over and over that they're so excited about is that many of the providers are people that they always wanted to have continuous summer programming with.

Some of them in fact do have out-of-school time available through either the state or previous grants, but they didn't have the funds for the summer.

So this has been a marvelous opportunity for continuity because it's those out-of-school time providers who got to know them during the school year, know some of their challenges, and now, can be involved with them if all same of the wonderful things that we've just mentioned.

From art to science to STEM.

And really, so importantly, our children get an opportunity for enrichment experiences that a lot of our families simply cannot provide.

They're able to get that through those quality folks and the fact that transportation is involved, because that is one of the most identified kind of complexities that our families are always addressing.

- Yeah, I was gonna ask about that, transportation, especially here in Detroit, but I wanna go back to something else that you said, which is that this kinda connects with the programming that's already in place for people during the school year.

And that's also changing here in Detroit.

I mean, we're doing better at providing opportunities, finding ways to create programming.

And as you point out, get kids to it.

Transportation is a huge part of that.

I mean, you can't do anything in Detroit and make it real unless you're gonna provide some way to get there.

- Yeah.

And so, you know, you actually hit one of those equity issues.

So it doesn't matter whether we have universal pre-K whether we had marvelous college to career programs.

The reality is that in many families, you've got children that go across different age groups in different schools and they may or may not have transportation or they have one car, and how are you gonna get someone, you can get your toddler to a preschool and then your high school student to somewhere else.

So transportation is really vital.

And it's not only vital and it's been built into this program.

What we are saying to our families and to parents in particular is their voices are important to let everyone know how important, not only the out-of-school time is for their children, but it gives them the opportunity to breathe, continue to go to work.

And frankly, I think some of the most outstanding out-of-school time programs are those that are very intentional to engage parents.

So that very much like when I can remember being at the elementary.

Everything that we did at school or after school also was part of parents, families, and community.

That's one of the dynamics that we're certainly excited to see.

Some providers are doing more of that, but we certainly need more that we're enriching children, but the whole child, whole family approach.

- Yeah.

Jeff, let's talk about the support for this and how it kind of comes together.

And you got some good news recently about it continuing, isn't that right?

- Yeah.

No, this year, we have over 19,000 students enrolled in Summer Discovery Program.

We have just over $35 million in funding across 95 sites in Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb.

And just finished a round of site visits.

I think we did over 25 different sites out of those 95 with the Ballmer team and building impact and following the that, you know, Ballmer Group has committed to funding year two.

So we're very excited that we're gonna be able to commit to coming back next year and really hopefully, over the next four years as well.

They've always viewed this as a five-project.

And you know, one of the things that we're also doing is there's a pre and post-assessment on this.

You know, they're very committed to making sure that the program is working and that we're getting those academic gains that we hope to see and what will tweak the program as we go along.

You know, this is really our first year, it's gonna be a growth year.

We're gonna take all the data, the feedback from parents and students as well as that pre and post data and just continue to refine and make the program itself better, make it easier for schools and CBOs to implement.

And really again, to Jametta's point, just try to provide that most enriching whole child, whole family experience that we know is so desperately needed in our region.

- Yeah.

Talk about how this connects to the other work that United Way is trying to do specifically with our young people in metro Detroit.

Not just in Detroit.

I mean we've got real needs all over the region.

- Yep.

Yeah, no, I appreciate that and thank you for the opportunity a few years ago to talk about Connect for Care kids, which is for our pre-K families to be able to find and identify programs for their children zero to five.

And we really see this as an extension of that.

You know, these years are so critical to the development of our children.

And so we really see this as a continuum.

And United Way always tries to figure out where the gap is in that social safety net and out-of-school time and aftercare summer programming.

You know, fortunately, that still remains a gap and this is a great way that we've been able to partner to help fill that you able to continue to better coordinate so that families can understand what all of their options are simply and easily and something that will certainly endeavor around as this program continues.

- Yeah, yeah.

Jametta, also catches up on Detroit Parent Network and the work that you guys do here in the city meeting, all of the incredible needs that families have certainly trying to get their kids educated.

- Well, we are certainly trying to continue to educate and equip and really important empower parent voices, but not only just here in Detroit.

We just are really excited because we've had the opportunity from new funding from the state to take the good works that we've been doing in Detroit, Wayne.

And now begin to share those collaboratively in other communities.

Whether that's Pontiac, Ypsilanti, Grand Rapids, all the way up to someplace like Traverse City.

Because the reality is that the needs of parents don't change.

What we need to do is gather infrastructure and advocacy.

The other thing that I wanna be sure to share is while just like United Way, we're advocating and doing parent-to-parent work around early literacy, healthy families, college and career, we're also doing a lot of work around advocacy.

In fact, our parents were part of the work of going and meeting with legislators and educate them about the importance of equitable funding in out-of-school time.

We've had our parents not only going to (indistinct) but to Washington D.C. to uplift how important education and investing in education and transportation, mental health, and all the things that our children really need to thrive.

I would love to share one thing, and of course, United Way was involved in this.

Just recently, we had the first part of 60,000 books, In the D have come in to a grant from Alina, a million dollars worth of books.

And our 313Reads community literacy coordination and coalition has been part of that, United Way has been fundamental.

And we have probably about 50% of the 67 entities that receive some of those books are out-of-school time providers.

- Oh wow.

There you go.

- So it's cool.

So now not only can children come and read books and be excited, but you've seen it and Jeff, I know you have to and Stephen, there's nothing like when you give a child a book and they say, "Is it mine?"

And you say, "Yes, Darwin, it's yours."

And not only when you finish reading that one, we've got some more for you.

And with DPN, when we do literacy, we also make sure that there's literacy materials for the family.

So it might be a journal we need and we'll send home a Wakanda Forever comic book.

Because we need to have reading at different levels.

And so we are very excited about the work we're doing collectively and how getting 60,000 books into the hands of children is really important because that's part of the continuum of enrichment that children need to have.

And parents will learn how it makes a real difference when children have books that are accessible to them.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Jeff Miles, Jametta Lilly, congratulations on the work and thanks for being here on "American Blank Journal."

- It's a joy.

Thank you.

- Yeah, thank you.

- And thank you for helping get the word out to our families.

- Absolutely.

That'll do it for us this week.

You can find out more about our guests at americanblackjournal.org and you can always connect with us anytime on social media.

Take care and we'll see you next time.

(techno music) - [Narrator] From Delta Faucets to Behr Paint.

Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

- [Narrator] Support also provided by the Cynthia & Edsel Ford Fund for journalism at Detroit PBS.

- [Narrator] DTE Foundation is a proud sponsor of Detroit PBS.

Among the state's largest foundations committed to Michigan focused giving, we support organizations that are doing exceptional work in our state.

Learn more at dtefoundation.com.

- [Narrator] Also brought to you by Nissan Foundation.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.

(gentle music)