About Rural Oklahoma Birth & Wellness Initiative
Mission & History.
The Rural Oklahoma Birth & Wellness Initiative (ROBWI) is a community-based nonprofit organization working to strengthen maternal, infant, and family well-being across rural Oklahoma.
Our work is grounded in relationship, lived experience, and trust. We serve the communities we live in, come from, and are deeply connected to. We do not enter communities as outsiders. Every county we serve is already home to members of our team.
ROBWI exists to strengthen what is already present in rural communities while addressing the real gaps that families and providers identify themselves.
Our Mission
ROBWI strengthens maternal and infant health outcomes in rural Oklahoma by building relationship-centered perinatal support systems through community collaboration, workforce development, education, and coordinated care.
Our work focuses on access, dignity, and sustainability, ensuring that families receive support that is culturally responsive, trauma-informed, and rooted in the realities of rural life.
Our Story
ROBWI grew out of lived experience and long-standing community work across rural Oklahoma. Our founders and team members are doulas, educators, mental health professionals, nurses, nonprofit leaders, and parents who have witnessed firsthand how rural families are often required to navigate pregnancy, birth, and postpartum with limited access to care and little coordination between systems.
At the same time, we saw the strength already present in these communities: informal support networks, committed providers, grassroots organizers, and families who care deeply for one another.
ROBWI was created to bridge these realities. What began as community collaboration through libraries, health departments, local organizations, and perinatal professionals has grown into a regional effort to connect systems, grow local workforce, and bring resources directly into communities.
We center lived experience and local leadership because sustainable change only happens when communities shape the solutions.
The Gaps We Address
Rural Oklahoma communities face layered barriers to perinatal care, including:
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Limited access to prenatal, birth, postpartum, and lactation services
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Long travel distances and transportation barriers
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Provider shortages and hospital closures
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Fragmented systems with limited coordination
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Lack of trauma-informed, culturally responsive support
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Workforce shortages, especially for Medicaid-covered services
ROBWI addresses these gaps by strengthening connections between families, providers, and community supports while building local capacity and leadership.
Our Vision.
We envision rural Oklahoma communities where families are supported by strong, coordinated systems of care that are built from within the community itself.
In our vision, rural Oklahoma has a sustainable, locally rooted perinatal workforce that includes community-based doulas, providers, educators, and organizations working in partnership rather than isolation. Families are connected to the resources and supports that already exist, those supports are strengthened and fortified, and remaining gaps in care are intentionally filled through direct support, doula services, and community-based programs.
We envision communities where:
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Perinatal support is accessible across geography and income
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Community-based doulas are trained, mentored, contracted, and supported long-term
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Providers and community organizations collaborate with shared understanding and trust
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Families receive continuity of care across pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and early parenting
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Systems are responsive to lived experience and local realities
Our vision is not a single program or service. It is a connected ecosystem of support where workforce development, community coordination, and direct care work together to improve outcomes and strengthen rural families for generations.
Our Approach.
We believe strong communities create strong outcomes.
Our work is rooted in relationship, lived experience, and trust. We only serve counties where members of our team already live, work, and are deeply connected. We do not enter communities as outsiders. We show up in the places we come from, with people who are already part of the community fabric.
The community informs our work. Our role is to listen first, strengthen what already exists, and help fill gaps identified by the community itself. Programs are not imposed. They are shaped through relationship, feedback, and shared responsibility.
Strengthening What Exists
We intentionally partner with existing community supports, providers, organizations, and grassroots efforts. We do not duplicate services or replace the work already being done. Instead, we focus on connection, coordination, and capacity-building.
Through listening sessions, evaluations, focus groups, and ongoing relationship-building, communities tell us what is working well and where additional support is needed. Everything we build responds directly to that feedback and is designed to integrate into the systems already serving families.
How We Work With Communities
Listening First
We begin by listening. Community members, families, and providers guide our understanding of how pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and early parenting are experienced locally. This insight shapes every program, event, and training we offer.
Connecting Providers and Supports
We bring together providers, organizations, and stakeholders who are doing similar or complementary work. These gatherings reduce silos, strengthen referral pathways, and build coordinated local networks of support.
Community Resource Fairs and Baby Showers
We host county-wide perinatal resource fairs and community baby showers that connect families to education, programs, and tangible support in welcoming, trauma-informed spaces. These events emphasize dignity, choice, and connection and are intentionally designed to feel relational rather than clinical.
These gatherings also serve as an entry point for community-based doula care, helping families and providers understand how doulas support care across pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.
Community-Based Doula Training and Workforce Development
Our doula workforce is grown locally, not brought in from outside.
We recruit and train doulas from the communities they will serve, ensuring care is culturally responsive, trusted, and sustainable. Training is followed by structured mentorship and ongoing support.
As part of mentorship, doulas help plan community events, strengthen provider relationships, and deepen their connections to local resources. We intentionally contract with the doulas we train, and the majority of our mentors, trainers, and facilitators come directly from our own cohorts.
This creates a continuous, community-rooted workforce pipeline that supports both families and providers.
Supporting Providers and Prenatal Care
We collaborate with providers and subject-matter experts to develop trainings that support professionals working with pregnant and parenting families.
These trainings focus on strengthening prenatal support beyond medical care, understanding social and structural barriers to health, appropriate referral to community-based supports, and effective collaboration with doulas. Our goal is to strengthen alignment between clinical systems and community-based care.
Growing Leadership From Within Communities
Many of our doulas are also nurses, social workers, mental health professionals, nonprofit leaders, and individuals with lived experience. They bring this knowledge into their work and help educate the systems they are already part of.
We intentionally support mentor and trainer development from within our training cohorts, ensuring leadership remains local, relational, and grounded in community values.
Organizational Development and Nonprofit Incubation
ROBWI supports the development of community-based organizations, particularly nonprofits, that address unmet local needs.
When appropriate, emerging programs may operate under the nonprofit umbrella of the Rural Oklahoma Birth & Wellness Initiative, allowing them to begin serving families without startup barriers. The parent organization provides mentorship, operational guidance, and infrastructure support while communities determine priorities and direction.
Rural Access Through Satellite Events
To reach families in the most rural areas, we host smaller Baby Education Expo events throughout each county. These satellite events bring education, resources, and tangible support directly to families who may face transportation or access barriers.
A Model Built on Relationship
Everything we do is about connection, growth, and sustainability within and among rural Oklahoma communities.
By strengthening existing supports, growing workforce and leadership from within, and supporting community-led solutions, we help build systems of care that last.
This is how we show up.
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What We Build Together.
We believe lasting change happens when communities build systems together.
The Rural Oklahoma Birth & Wellness Initiative does not work in isolation. Everything we do is built in partnership with families, doulas, providers, organizations, and community leaders who are already showing up for rural Oklahoma.
Together, we build coordinated systems of care that connect what already exists, strengthen those supports, and intentionally fill gaps through direct services, workforce development, and community-based solutions.
We Build Connection
We connect families to the resources and supports already present in their communities and strengthen pathways between providers, organizations, and community-based care. By reducing silos and improving coordination, families experience clearer access, continuity, and support across pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and early parenting.
We Build Workforce
We build a sustainable, locally rooted perinatal workforce by training, mentoring, and contracting community-based doulas from the communities they serve. Workforce development does not end with training. It includes mentorship, leadership development, and ongoing support so doulas can remain engaged, trusted, and integrated into local systems of care.
We Build Capacity
We partner with existing organizations, providers, and grassroots efforts to strengthen capacity rather than replace services. Through shared planning, education, and collaboration, communities are better equipped to meet local needs using tools, knowledge, and leadership that remain in the community.
We Build Access
When gaps exist, we help fill them through direct support, doula care, community education, and outreach. From large county-wide resource fairs to small satellite education events, we bring care, information, and tangible support directly to families who face access barriers due to geography, transportation, or system limitations.
We Build Leadership
Leadership is grown from within. Many of our doulas and partners are also nurses, mental health providers, nonprofit leaders, and community advocates. We support leadership development within our programs so those closest to the work continue shaping solutions, training others, and guiding systems change.
We Build Systems That Last
Together, we are building more than programs. We are building infrastructure.
By centering community voice, strengthening existing supports, developing workforce from within, and aligning systems around shared goals, we help create perinatal support networks that are resilient, responsive, and sustainable.
This work belongs to the community.
We are honored to build it together.
