Veranda Rodgers has big dreams for every mom she meets – just like she has big dreams for herself.
Giving birth to her first child at 16 years old was the “fuel” Rodgers used to become the best version of herself. She went back to high school and then graduated college, with the support of her parents. Still, it wasn’t easy.
Rodgers decided she wanted to make it easier, especially for other Black moms like her. So in 2015, she created the Pregnant with Possibilities Resource Center.
“The term pregnancy means something that you have inside of you that you need to give birth to. … Sometimes you need to give birth to your hopes, your dreams and your aspirations,” Rodgers said. “So Pregnant with Possibilities, the name didn’t derive out of a vacuum. It literally came because I want moms to also be the best versions of themselves.”
Since starting the nonprofit, it’s grown in size — it now has a brick and mortar operation in Maple Heights — and in scope. The center provides education, community and support for perinatal women who are pregnant or up to 11 months postpartum. Moms go through a 13-week program, with sessions on how to have a healthy pregnancy and birth. Each client is paired with a care coordinator, who meets with them once a month to check on whether they have housing, food, child care and health insurance.
Pregnant with Possibilities staff also work in high schools to teach sexual education, with the goal of preventing STIs and “premature” pregnancies. And they have two licensed therapists who provide mental health services.
A majority of the center’s clients are Black. That’s because Rodgers is hoping to address the stark disparities in health outcomes between Black and white infants and mothers. From 2021 to 2023, Black infants in Cuyahoga County were nearly three times more likely to die than white infants, according to the Cuyahoga County Board of Health. At the national level, Black women are also more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control.
Rodgers’ Pregnant with Possibilities Center is one of a myriad of Cuyahoga County organizations that opened in the past decade or so with the goal of reducing these disparities and providing culturally-competent care to Black families. Birthing Beautiful Communities formed in 2014 and provides doula services to pregnant and postpartum women. Village of Healing opened its first location providing primary and ob-gyn care in 2022. A new practice, Shaffina Health, just started operating this year.
So what sort of impact are these organizations making? After celebrating Pregnant with Possibilities’ 10th anniversary this year, Rodgers sat down to talk about the work the agency does every day, lessons learned so far and the challenges that still lie ahead.
What was your experience as a new mother like, and did it have any role in creating the Pregnant with Possibilities Resource Center?
I had my first kid in 2004. When this started in 2015, I actually had just had my second kid. He was born in 2013, and so he was 2. I had two different kids in two different time periods. … So Pregnant with Possibilities literally was created out of my lived experience and what I saw in two different phases of being a mom.
What did you see in those two different phases?
The first phase of being a mom, I was a child myself, right? And I was parenting and raising a kid as I was also trying to grow, develop, make it through high school, then through undergrad.
… I breastfed for a week, and I went back to school. So that was the only thing that my son really got. While I did nurture, grow and develop with him, it looked different. My second kid, I breastfed him for eight months. I was at home with him for the first nine months of his life.
My second kid was planned; my first kid was not. So … I was a completely different parent. I also experienced what I thought was almost a miscarriage. I had some internally heavy bleeding with my second kid, which was very scary, going to the emergency room.
What were you thinking in the lead up to creating Pregnant with Possibilities?
We started with a heart for teens, like teen parents, because I was a teen mom. However, when I started to do this work … I realized that here in Cuyahoga County, here in the state of Ohio, we were failing Black and brown moms and babies when it comes to the disparities. … And they’re the most underserved population, when we look at infant and maternal mortality. So as I started taking a deep dive and doing the work, I realized that Pregnant with Possibilities had to shift from what I initially envisioned to what it was the community needed.
Why did you start with preventive sexual education (for high schoolers) and perinatal support for pregnant and postpartum moms?
We did comprehensive sexual health education because what I realized is that a lot of families don’t talk to their youth about making healthy life choices and decisions. … Fifty percent of all new STI cases are made up amongst youth, ages 13 to 17. And so we have to make sure that they understand the risk and consequences that goes beyond just saying yes to somebody. We have to understand the emotional bond and/or trauma that goes with sexual activity. And how do we prevent premature pregnancies and STIs amongst youth?
Our perinatal support program has always been a group-based model to support families to make sure that they have the support that they need, that they are making healthy life choices and that we’re holding them accountable to change the trajectory of their life.
When moms come here for the perinatal support program, can you tell me what that looks like? What might a mom learn about or experience during those 13 weeks of courses?
First of all, we send out an invitation to see if they need transportation. We provide private Lyft rides because mom shouldn’t have to stand at the bus stop. … And their kids can come along with them, if they’re under 11. So we provide them with transportation that actually allows them to get picked up right at their door and then dropped off at our door.
We also provide them with a full hot meal, understanding that we have to meet their basic needs first. … So we feed them and their kids a hot meal, typically a three-course meal.
The curriculum throughout these 13 weeks focuses on a myriad of things, such as baby prep, financial literacy, lactation support. We also focus on goal planning. We focus on their birth plan. We focus on their family plan. So after you deliver, what does that look like for the success and growth of your family? We also focus on healthy nutrition. … We talk about stress management. We talk about self-care.
Also, they earn points as they’re going through the program. So they earn points for participation, just to walk in the door and show up. They earn points for meeting with their care coordinator, who are certified community health workers or social workers. … All of those points add up to a large item. It may be a car seat. It may be a stroller. Diapers, wipes, formula, baby clothes. All of the things that they need to feel supported.
How do you measure impact, success in this work?
We’re looking at changed behaviors. We do a pre- and post-assessment for all of our programs. So we look at what someone knew when they walked in the door to what it is that they know once they leave here. And that can be anything from safe sleep up until financial stability. Did you know how to manage your money when you walked in here? Do you know how to manage it now? Do you feel safe enough to ask for the support that you need? Because maybe you didn’t when you first walked in here.
A lot of people say the most helpful thing for them is that I didn’t know how to read food labels before I walked in here, or even the importance of nutrition. And so I have those skill sets now.
So in 2023, you all expanded to mental health. Tell me a little bit about the decision to bring mental health into your work.
Fifty percent of all of our referrals for those two years during COVID were for mental health services. And what we were seeing is that there were long wait times to access care. There was a disconnect from our families being able to connect with somebody who had the lived experience. … So what we would say is that we weren’t closing the loop on mental health services. We were making a referral, but that doesn’t mean that … families actually accessed the care.
So I started having conversations with our partners, our funders. They were on board. Special shout out to United Healthcare. They gave us a large amount of money to start the initiative to become a licensed behavioral health agency. … And what we specialize in is hiring people who have lived experience and look like the population that we serve. [Now clients can receive mental health services at Pregnant with Possibilities.]
What do you feel like in the past 10 years is the biggest lesson learned?
As a leader, the mental health stability of you and your team matter. We cannot re-traumatize people. … So we do mental health Mondays here, ’cause I need to check the pulse on the people who serve. So my goal as a leader is to support them. But their goal … is to support the community. And so that means we all have to check whatever we have going on at the door.
Tell me what you mean by re-traumatize people.
People are already overwhelmed. Think about the crisis that we just saw when it came to SNAP and food stamps. People are in crisis. … What you can’t do as a staff member is come to somebody with a nasty attitude or superior mindset or not having a heart of service. … People are already traumatized, because if I have to figure out how I’m about to support my kids and make sure that they have a meal for tomorrow, the last thing I want to do is come into an organization where I’m not treated with respect and dignity just to get support.
Some of the other groups really focused on Black maternal health and infant mortality, they want to create a place for Black women to feel they will be respected. Whereas there’s fear they may not be in other places. Is that where you’re coming from?
That’s absolutely where we come from. Absolutely. Even anybody who walks through this door, but let me say, especially individuals who have the highest disparities, Black women.
In the past ten years, there’s been a number of other organizations opening up with similar goals of improving racial disparities and maternal mortality. How has the broader healthcare ecosystem, social service ecosystem, changed for supporting Black moms and infants since you started? Has it become more supportive?
We are thoroughly working on how we create an environment that links everything together. Here in Cuyahoga County, we are rich in resources. Sometimes we can absolutely be disjointed. And so collaboration is key. So how are we collectively collaborating and working together to support families is what I’m all about.
Our governor has made it a point to support families, to support children. In COVID, and the highest point of racial disparity, is when we’ve seen a major shift in this work. And now as policies and agendas change, it just means that we have to go harder to make sure families are supported.
So it sounds like you do feel as though there’s been an upswell of focus on the issue in the past 10 years?
I would say it has. We have seen an upswell.
But now you want to keep that going.
Yes, we need to keep the momentum going. And we have to call out racism as a real thing. We have to call out the social determinants of health and people not having access. Why do we still have healthcare deserts? Why do we still have food deserts? Why do people not have access to their basic needs? Because while we want to solve this one issue, there’s so many other factors that play a major part in everything.
Are there gaps or needs that still exist for Black moms and babies in Cuyahoga County, and what might they be?
I would say yeah, there’s major gaps. Transportation, housing. Housing is a major gap. We don’t have enough housing facilities to ensure moms or babies are in a safe, sustainable environment.
Transportation is a major barrier. Even connectivity issues. Having access just to the internet is a real thing. So are there gaps? Yeah, absolutely. We still have a long ways to go.
So you’ve got 10 years under your belt. But what does the future look like for Pregnant with Possibilities?
I’m actually actively working on transitional housing for women and children. … So we are actively seeking funding to support our eight-bed transitional housing unit where moms and babies will be able to be with us from inception up until one year postpartum.
Our goal is to help them have sustainability. Whether that’s through employment, workforce engagement, so that when they leave our place that they’re sustainable to go into the community.
Transition means transitioning out of homelessness?
Exactly.
How have maternal and infant mortality rates changed over the past 10, 20 years in Cuyahoga County?
We have absolutely fluctuated. But our numbers are still high. So while some years we may go down, if you’re looking on-trend, in this last year, we actually went back up.
When you think about that, is it things like transitional housing that can make a dent in that?
I think it takes a myriad of things. It’s not just one thing. It’s not just one organization. It takes all of us moving, working together, to make real change.