Target Group: Physicians/Clinicians
Date: May 2012
Publication:
Sew Up the Safety Net for Women & Children
Helping clinical providers optimize positive birth outcomes and infant survival
past one year
Is your office struggling with assisting women patients who are at risk for poor birth outcomes
in the Brightmoor, Osborn, and Chadsey-Condon neighborhoods in Detroit? Just as it takes a
village to raise a child, it takes a clinical, social support team to ensure a favorable birth
outcome and zero infant deaths. There is a new community-based resource to help you.
Sew Up the Safety Net for Women & Children is a three-year, $2.6 million grant-funded project
designed to close gaps in the existing system of pregnancy/infant care resources for women
ages 18 to 34 in Brightmoor, Osborn, and Chadsey-Condon neighborhoods.
Objectives of Sew Up the Safety Net include:
 Work in concert with you to improve women’s health status during and between
pregnancies through community-based education and support
 Linking pregnant women to prenatal care in 1 of 4 health systems
o Detroit Medical Center, Henry Ford Health System, Oakwood Healthcare System,
St. John Providence Health System
 Increasing women’s access to and engagement with local resources on healthy
pregnancy, parenting, job training, fresh foods, and more
 Linking women to social support systems
 Building women’s skills as health consumers by improving knowledge and practice of
preconception and prenatal behaviors
 Helping infants survive and thrive through their first year of life
Sew Up the Safety Net employs six trained Community & Neighborhood Navigators, or CNNs, to
work in the three target neighborhoods. They help women connect with social and community
services to optimize a favorable birth outcome, and provide peer mentoring to women enrolled
in the program. This program is provided at no cost to your office or patients.
It’s easy to help
As a clinician, your role is both simple and crucial. If you provide care to women who live in any
of the three target neighborhoods and who meet the program criteria (see sidebar, below),
please call 313-874-4581.
Benefits to participating clinicians
 To help women self-refer, we also provide free posters and fliers on community-based
services for posting in the clinic setting.
SUSN Article – page 2
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If you choose, the CNN can put you in touch with public health partners and community
organizations to help you connect your patients to available resources.
As a clinician, you can receive information on health disparities, social determinants of
health, and health literacy to help support your clinical practice.
Sew Up the Safety Net website for clinicians:
You will also be able to access a designated section of the Sew Up the Safety Net website for
clinicians, where you will find links to a wide range of resources for your patients. These will
include the Maternal Infant Health Program [MIHP and formerly MSS/ISS] for Medicaid
recipients, United Way 2-1-1, a Community Resource Guide arranged by neighborhood, as well
as additional educational resources (available summer 2012).
Project funders:
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Henry
Ford Health System, St. John Providence Health System, the Detroit Medical Center-Children’s
Hospital, Oakwood Healthcare System, the University of Michigan School of Public Health, and
PNC Foundation. More than 30 additional public health, community, and academic partners
also are involved.
For more information, go to henryford.com/susn or call 313-874-4581.
SIDEBAR
Participant Enrollment Criteria
Sew Up the Safety Net for Women & Children is using neighborhood-based recruitment
strategies to enroll:
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Pregnant women who are less than 35 weeks pregnant (with a goal of enrolling them in
the program as early as possible to maximize the program’s positive impacts) preferably
those that have had a prior pregnancy
Non-pregnant women of child-bearing age
Between ages 18 and 34 years
Living in either Brightmoor (48223), Chadsey-Condon (48208 and 48210), or Osborn
neighborhood (48205 and 48234)
English-speaking
Our staff will refer any participants who, in the course of the program, begin to present with
undiagnosed physical or mental conditions. For questions or to refer a patient, please call Sew
Up the Safety Net at 313-874-4581.
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