Lamaze offers grants and scholarships to support childbirth professionals pursuing Lamaze Certification, focusing on expanding access to diverse educators.
Lamaze Expand Equity Scholarship
The application period for the Lamaze Expand Equity Scholarship is currently closed.
The Lamaze Expand Equity Scholarship is designed to recruit, train, and mentor individuals from under-resourced or historically marginalized communities to become Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educators (LCCEs). Its goal is to build a more diverse workforce of educators and increase access to high-quality, evidence-based childbirth education for families who often face barriers to maternity care.
Program Structure
Scholarship recipients (trainees) will be paired with a seasoned Lamaze mentor to guide them through the beginning of their Lamaze Educator journey from September through June 2025. Mentors will assist their trainees with key aspects of their training, including business/career development, curriculum development, support while studying for the LCCE Certification Exam, and student teaching.
Program Expectations
Trainees and mentors who receive the Lamaze Expand Equity Scholarship will be expected to follow the Lamaze Expand Equity Scholarship Program Calendar. Please view the calendar in detail, as the pace of this program may be demanding and require a significant amount of time for trainees.
Trainees will be expected to complete the following steps towards their training and certification:
- Study with the Lamaze Educator Learning Guide (~575 pages) Maternity care deserts are counties in which access to maternity health care services is limited or absent, either through lack of services or barriers to a woman’s ability to access that care. A county was classified as a maternity care desert if there were no hospitals providing obstetric care, no birth centers, no OB/GYN and no certified nurse midwives. Counties were classified as having low access to maternity care services if there was one or less hospital offering OB service and fewer than 60 OB providers per 10,000 births, and the proportion of women without health insurance was 10 percent or greater (March of Dimes, 2022).
- Observe a Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator teach a full childbirth educator course (virtually or in-person)
- Attend a Lamaze Childbirth Educator Seminar (virtually or in-person)
- Write a childbirth education curriculum based on the Essential Content of a Lamaze class o The LCCE mentor will assist trainee with lesson plan development
- Complete student teaching using your childbirth education curriculum with your LCCE mentor as observer (virtually or in-person) o Recruit parents to participate in a complimentary class (this class cost is offset by the trainee honorarium)
- Sit for the Lamaze Certification Exam in spring 2025
What Does the Scholarship Cover?
Trainees will receive the following resources and services free of charge: the Lamaze Learning Guide, attendance at a Lamaze seminar, Certification Exam registration, and access to Lamaze Curriculum building resources (Activity Database, Curriculum PowerPoint, Six Healthy Birth Practices eBooklet, and Practice Test). Selected trainees will receive a $1,750 student teaching honorarium to offset time and costs associated with teaching and curriculum development. If a trainee is selected to receive this Scholarship and has already purchased the Learning Guide and seminar the trainee will be reimbursed by Lamaze.
Mentors will receive funding to offset the cost of one month of access LinkedIn Learning for mentor training and a $1,200 mentor honorarium.
Trainee Eligibility
Trainee candidates must meet the following requirements to apply for and receive scholarship funding:
- Intend to become a Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator by taking the Lamaze Certification Exam in May-June 2025
- Able to attend a Lamaze Seminar in September, October, November, December, or January, or are eligible to take the exam in spring 2025 (seminar taken within three calendar years of exam registration)
- Live in the United States or a U.S. territory o Please note that our scholarship funding was awarded with the intent of increasing access to childbirth education within the U.S.
- Commit to studying with the Lamaze Educator Learning Guide between September 2024- May 2025 (~575 pages)
- Commit to timelines and parameters as outlined in the Lamaze Expand Equity Scholarship Program Calendar (last page of this document)
- Plan to teach in a community that is under-resourced or historically marginalized (see details below):
- You live in/plan to teach in a maternity care desert or a county with low access to maternity care as defined by the March of Dimes 2022 Report. Please verify by checking the March of Dimes website.
- OR
- You plan to teach in a community that is underserved by Lamaze Educators (BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, low-income families, teenagers, people with differing abilities, or incarcerated parents).
Mentor Eligibility
Mentor candidates must meet the following requirements to apply for and serve as a mentor:
- Be certified as a LCCE
- Currently teaching childbirth education (i.e. you have taught a class within the last six months)
- Commit to 2-5 hours a month for the mentorship program. On average, mentors will be expected to meet with their trainee once a month (virtually or in-person), and may also communicate via other means (emails, calls, etc.)
- Have a minimum of five years of experience as a perinatal professional OR 100+ hours of childbirth education instruction
- Commit to timelines and parameters as outlined in the Lamaze Expand Equity Scholarship Program Calendar (last page of this document)
The Lamaze Expand Equity Scholarship is generously sponsored by: