Mission

We aim to expand access to rights-based, equitable, accessible, and culturally-safe perinatal health services that are free from mistreatment and discrimination.​

Vision

We use community- based participatory methods to measure service user experiences, educate healthcare workers, monitor the quality of services and implement Perinatal health improvement projects throughout Canada.​
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Through our work, we support perinatal healthcare workers, researchers, and learners with under represented identities.​

Goal

To ensure all service users are met with unconditional positive regard during their pregnancy care.

About Us

The overall aim of the Justice and Equity in Perinatal Services (JEPS) Hub is to expand access to models of care and health services that (i) meet all service users with unconditional positive regard1–3, (ii) provide reliable information on culturally-safe options for care; (iii) respect their autonomy; and, (iv) are free from mistreatment and discrimination. To this end, we have convened a pan-Canadian coalition of researchers, perinatal health workers, service users, and community organizations actively engaged in advancing equity and justice in reproductive health. The JEPS Hub will enable us to leverage our transdisciplinary, multi-sector community of practice (CoP) to expand access to rights-based, equitable, accessible, and culturally-safe perinatal health services.

To achieve our mission, we are focused on 4 domains of collective action:

(1) person-centred measurement of equity, quantity, and safety;

(2) designing and implementing accountability tools and systems;

(3) improving health professional education on anti-oppression, anti-racism, and cultural safety;

(4) expanding representation in the perinatal research and clinical workforce.

Who we are

The JEPS Hub is a multi-stakeholder group made up of a Tri-Partite Leadership team, Community Expert Site Leads, and an Advisory Council.

Tri-Partite Leadership team: Birth Place Lab's Principal Investigator Dr. Saraswathi Vedam, Knowledge User Lead Dr. Cynthia Maxwell, and Community Partner Organization, National Indigenous Council of Midwives co-leads the JEPS Hub.

Regional Implementation Teams: Community members, healthcare workers, and educators with a drive for equitable and justice-based perinatal care, working together at a local-level to implement the JEPS Hub resources.

Advisory Council: Indigenous Elders, healthcare workers, community leaders, emerging scholars, researchers, and service users with lived expereince of migration, disability, and/or being historically marginalized and excluded from health systems planning and policy. The council meets bi-annually to evaluate, assess, and develop new strategies, existing projects, and reflect on progress.