Healthy Births for Healthy Communities (HBHC)
The goal of the Healthy Births for Healthy Communities (HBHC) pilot project is to improve birth outcomes in two of Chicago’s west side communities, North Lawndale and Austin and to use the lessons learned from the project to improve the Maternal and Child Health service system in Illinois. HBHC has the right partners to accomplish those goals. It is a collaborative project with community leadership and partners from the Illinois Departments of Human Services and Healthcare and Family Services as well as the Michael Reese Health Trust, the Irving Harris Foundation, the Illinois Children’s Healthcare Foundation and the Steans Family Foundation. The project seeks to find, enroll and provide interventions to previously unserved women, who bear a disproportionate share of adverse birth outcomes. The HBHC interventions began in July 2006 with intensive Outreach services. In early 2007, the HBHC Interconceptional Care intervention was launched. HBHC services end on June 30, 2010 with a full evaluation to be released in the Fall of 2010.

Outreach
The purpose of Healthy Births for Healthy Communities (HBHC) is to improve pregnancy outcomes in North Lawndale and Austin. Intensive outreach, one of two components of the HBHC project, is focused on: a) finding pregnant women in North Lawndale and Austin who did not receive Family Case Management and/or WIC services during their prior pregnancy(ies); and, (b) referring these women to these services in their current pregnancy. The job activities for the HBHC outreach workers include finding women who are pregnant and linking them to a prenatal case management program. The outreach has been conducted on the street and in store fronts, in schools and in health clinics and within social service agencies. The majority of the target (unserved) women have been found within the service system. The results point to the need to develop better mechanisms for coordination between service providers Outreach services in North Lawndale are provided by Westside Association for Community Action and in Austin by Westside Health Authority.