The Strathcona Midwifery Collective strives to build community in an environment that nurtures and supports families, parents, and babies through community action.
Many people face barriers to appropriate health care, including prenatal and midwifery care. By centering our care in community participation, creating a welcoming clinical space, and providing clinical care in a non-hierarchical way we collaborate with the people in our care to overcome some of those barriers.
We celebrate family diversity as an enriching part of our community. We welcome nuclear, chosen, blended and creative family networks from diverse cultural, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. We are a queer friendly and trans inclusive space, where no one will be discriminated against based on their sexual orientation or gender-identity. We acknowledge and respond to the needs of marginalized and low income families in a non-patronizing way that supports dignity and self-determination.
Our clinic space is a community gathering space that welcomes people to come in to feed their babies, chat, have a cup of tea, browse our library, and get to know one another. We build community by partnering with other care providers, educators, and organizations who share our philosophy of care. We are dedicated to affordable and accessible care; therefor our community gatherings are free or sliding scale to ensure equal participation from all in the communities of the Downtown Eastside.
Our Midwives support community-centered and community-controlled practice. To this end we focus our clinical care within a framework of social action for health. With the same philosophy of collaboration, the midwives of the Strathcona Midwifery Collective work together to support each other as we strive to improve on our practice and achieve sustainability through work-life balance.
The Strathcona Midwifery Collective works to expand the scope of services for pregnant people and families in the Downtown Eastside, and to engage our community in a collaborative process towards the best possible environment in which to raise our children.