Neighborhood family support center

The Foundation has invested just under $2 million in the D.C. Developing Families Center (DCDFC) since 1996. DCDFC in an umbrella organization for three agencies: The D.C. Birth Center (DCBC) (a licensed, nurse-midwifery center providing prenatal, delivery, and full pediatric care); The Healthy Babies Project (a social service agency providing case management services for high-risk pregnant mothers); and The Nation's Capitol Child and Family Development Association (a 40-year-old child care organization with 24 centers in the District). Leveraging Foundation funding, a former Safeway store was acquired and renovated to house these three agencies as a comprehensive family service center targeting high-risk pregnant women and their children in wards 5 and 6 in Washington, D.C. When the Center became operational in 2000, the infant mortality rate in these wards was among the highest in the nation. The latest report on D.C.'s 2001 infant mortality rate, released by the Department of Health in May 2003, shows substantial declines in the infant mortality rate for families of both wards 5 and 6 being served by DCDFC. Due to some delays in start-up, unforeseen costs (e.g., doubling of malpractice insurance costs), lower-than-anticipated reimbursement from Medicaid managed care organizations, and fewer-than-anticipated patients using the birthing services, DCDFC and DCBC have not achieved financial self-sufficiency. Their instability in turn jeopardizes the stability of not only the collaboration as a whole, but the other two individual partners as well. This renewal represents the final grant to DCDFC to help it and DCBC attain fiscal sustainability and enable the collaborative to continue to function and even expand.

Grant Details

Amount Awarded $657,706.00

Awarded on: 7/9/2004

Time frame: 7/1/2004 - 6/30/2007

Grant Number: 51174