	Chapter Community Grants The Maine Chapter has a budget of $40,000 to award to agencies that provide maternal child health care. Every spring we send out nearly 1,000 announcements to health care providers and agencies, announcing our program and requesting interested parties send us a brief, two page description of new projects they wish to establish. This is called a Request for Proposals (RFP). The Grants Committee then reviews the Letters of Intent (LOI) that are sent to us. If an LOI gives promise of providing a service that meets March of Dimes interests, the agency is invited to submit a full proposal. This is a very competitive process. We average 10-15 LOI each year. Only 2 or 3 proposals are funded each year. In 2008, the Chapter expanded our budget line by adding $22,500 from our VitaGrant funds to expand preconception care activities. This gave us a total of $62,500 to award to Maine agencies this year. The following sites have been approved for 2008.

serving Greater Portland will receive $18,700 for a project called “Enhancing Prenatal Care for Somali Women”. The project will work to improve understanding of prenatal care, labor and delivery and postpartum care within the Somali population through design and implementation of a Somali-specific educational curriculum for patients seen in the Women’s Health Center and (2) improve understanding by staff of cultural specifics and needs of the Somali prenatal patient for physicians, nursing and ancillary staff.. They will recruit and train at least four Somali women to serve as liaisons with 2 pilot study groups (20 women total).

in the Bangor area will receive $21,300 for a “Satellite Prenatal Clinic at the Narcotic Treatment Program, Acadia Hospital.” The Center for Family Medicine will establish a collaborative, low barrier, satellite obstetrical clinic at Acadia Hospital to provide prenatal and women’s health care for women of childbearing age suffering opioid addiction. This would be an on-site, one-stop shopping model of preconception and prenatal care for addicted women in treatment. It would offer more culturally sensitive care, decrease “no shows” at the hospital and improve reproductive health care for women at high risk for poor birth outcomes, building on the success of a collaborative Well Child Clinic. Goals of the project include: reduce the length of time from pregnancy to first prenatal appointment, women will meet the 12-14 recommended prenatal visits, and increase gestational age and birth weight at delivery, increase enrollment in supportive programs such as WIC and public health nurses, and provide preconception counseling. This also offers opportunity to increase Acadia staff knowledge of the effects of treatment as related to obstetric care. They serve about 360 women, with 4-7% being pregnant.

serves the Presque Isle/Fort Kent/Houlton areas. March of Dimes Chlamydia Project will provide Chlamydia and pregnancy testing for the first 150 women between the ages of 25-39 who do not have health insurance and are identified with one or more risk factors. ACAP proposes to increase education and services for women of child bearing age who have sexually transmitted infection or who are at risk of getting one. The women in this group do not qualify for free CDC funding programs or “donation: services”. (Chlamydia screening is not considered part of the basic medical service under Family Planning Guidelines.) There will be 2 follow-ups to determine change on behavior and reassess risk factors.