Building A Resources and Referrals List to Support Any Client

As birth workers supporting people who exist at various intersections of identities and oppressions, building our lists of resources and referrals is something we have to do carefully and intentionally. We have to make sure that we have resources that speak to, include, and don’t misgender or disrespect the range of clients who may come to us. This means that we’ve got to do the work of compiling resources continuously and reframe the way we think about referrals. 

Building Strong Referral Lists 

It’s useful to think of your referrals list not as a list of sure-bet care providers, but as a living document where you continually collect information about the experiences that people in your communities have had with the providers in our area. Honestly, I don’t really make referrals. Instead, I ensure my clients know all about their options for providers and share the info that I have tracked over time about the providers in my area with my clients. 

In order to do this, it’s important to stay plugged in to your local birth workers groups. Make notes when you hear about experiences other birth workers or clients have with a provider. Periodically ask around about providers and seek out information about how clients of various identities have been treated by a provider. Maintaining your relationships with other birth workers in your city is really important for many reasons, but this is one of the big ones. 

I recommend looking for local birth worker groups on facebook. For better or worse, facebook groups are a place where you can find a lot of useful insider information about the providers in your area. These groups are helpful for asking a wide net about their experiences working with a certain provider or checking in periodically to see if any providers are coming up in the group’s conversation. 

Turning Lists Into Relationships

It’s also important to talk to providers directly and get your own impression of their ability to provide affirming, respectful, and supportive care to your clients. Many midwives and perinatal support practitioners (like pelvic floor PTs, acupuncturists, massage therapists, etc) will be amenable to connecting. It’s much harder to get in touch with OBs and nursing teams at local hospital systems, and these institutions tend to be deeply inconsistent from provider to provider. 

When you do get a provider on the phone,  zoom, or at a coffee meetup, my best advice is to ask direct open-ended questions. Instead of asking yes or no questions like “Have you been trained in how to provide gender affirming care?” ask questions like “How do you approach affirming a patient’s/client’s gender when in your care?” You can learn a lot from how someone answers by paying attention to things like how nervous they are to answer, how much or little they have to say, what sorts of language they use in their answer. And, if you want a more concrete look, you can always ask them to send you their intake paperwork. 

As you’re finding and tracking all of this information, it’s important to keep in mind a wide array of different marginalizations and oppressive dynamics. Make sure you’re paying attention to how a provider interacts with clients who are trans, disabled, Black, Indigenous, fat, queer, solo parents by choice, people living with trauma, etc. One provider might be great at getting people’s pronouns right, but might also be more likely to report their Black patients to Child Protective Services for declining recommended interventions. Another provider might practice using a trauma-informed lense, while also requiring patients to be below a certain BMI to be in their care.

It’s important to be able to give all of your different clients good information about what to expect from any given provider. Ultimately, as birth workers, it’s our job to support our clients by making sure they have all of the information they need to make informed decisions for themselves and their families. 

Connecting Families with Resources

As you’re building a list of informational resources, it’s important to consider how different people may take in information and what kinds of information might be helpful to your clients. Make sure that you’ve got lots of different formats represented- not just books and articles, but also videos and images. It’s also great if you can list resources that you can find for free, and not just ones that cost money. 

I suggest  keeping an editable document of resources that you can share with or draw from for any client, as well as  lists that are curated for certain types of clients. Are you working with trans clients? Make sure to have a list of resources that are affirming and respectful of trans birthing people and families. These can be difficult to find! Even when we are vetting with intention, it can be difficult to find informational resources for certain specific situations that are completely affirming and respectful. In situations like these, it’s great to annotate your resources list with content warnings and/or timestamps or page numbers where someone might come upon language that misgenders or excludes them. This way, they can be prepared for it or choose to skip it all together. 

Considering Individual Clients

One last important thing to remember is that we don’t always know what a client’s priorities are unless we ask them. They are the experts in their own situations, in what makes them feel most safe, and what they need. In so many aspects of birth work, it’s always best to refrain from assuming, and  just ask! If a client is asking for a referral, ask them what’s important to them in what they’re looking for in a provider. Take their lead! 

In the end, it’s necessary to recognize that every client has specific and different needs when it comes to both referrals and resources. As birth workers, we can be supportive by taking on some of the load of filtering and fact-finding for our clients. Once we’ve reframed the practice of creating a referrals or resources list that considers the different needs and priorities of different clients, we can accumulate and communicate information much more effectively.

About Moss

Moss Froom is a nonbinary full spectrum birth worker and educator living in Baltimore, MD. Moss offers trans and queer centered support services for people at all stages of their reproductive and family building journeys, and teaches other birth workers how to provide support that's affirming and celebratory of trans and queer families. Learn more about them and the services they offer at www.mossthedoula.com, or follow them on IG at @mossthedoula.