Listen to Chaney Mullins and Jacob Barr talk about the Her Plan directory which is built to support you in your client serving work.
Summary
This is Jacob Barr, and I recently had the privilege of hosting Chaney Mullins on the Pro-Life Team Podcast. In our conversation, Chaney introduced us to Her Plan, a Pregnancy and Life Assistance Network. This innovative platform is a comprehensive, free tool offering a searchable, filterable map of pre-vetted pro-life resources, expanding across 11 states and soon to reach 29. It includes a wide range of services like childcare, food banks, legal aid, and medical support, organized into seven categories reflecting the reasons women consider abortion.
Chaney emphasized the directory’s focus on ‘comprehensive care’, encompassing medical, social, and material resources for the first 1000 days of life from conception to age two. The tool is primarily designed for providers, enabling them to introduce and guide clients through it. Her Plan’s goal is to equip providers with up-to-date referrals and tools, fostering a tripartite communication among the provider, client, and new service provider, ensuring secure and efficient connections.
Interestingly, all providers in the directory must pledge not to support or refer for abortion, ensuring a life-affirming network. The directory is audited every three years, with ongoing checks for license renewals and feedback mechanisms to maintain accuracy and quality.
Her Plan is supported by Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America, benefiting from a broad base of donors and foundations. Its state coordinators play a vital role in building relationships with providers and integrating community efforts, emphasizing the importance of a united pro-life front.
In conclusion, Chaney encouraged service providers to join Her Plan, assuring respect for any provider’s decision regarding listing on the directory. Her Plan’s mission is to bridge gaps, connect services, and bolster the pro-life movement’s collective effort to support women and families.
### Hashtags:
#ProLifeNetwork, #HerPlan, #LifeAssistance, #PregnancySupport, #ComprehensiveCare, #ProLifeDirectory, #ResourceMapping, #ProviderSupport, #EmpowerWomen, #ProtectLife
Transcript
The transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors.
Chaney Mullins :
Welcome to the pro-life Team Podcast i’m Chaney and I’m honored to be joining Jacob today to discuss her plan, her Pregnancy and Life Assistance Network, and a revolutionary new free tool, directory. Dot her plan dot org, where you can find referral resources for your clients, from lawyers to doctors to counselors to child care providers you’re not going to want to miss this.
Jacob Barr :
So Chaney, I am so excited to have you on the pro-life Team Podcast. Would you introduce yourself as if you were talking to a small group of frankly, clinic executive directors and sort of like just say who you are and a little about, a little bit about her plan for those who don’t know about her plan yet?
Chaney Mullins :
Absolutely thank you, Jacob. So I’m Chaney Mullins i’m the her Plan Provider Support Manager and I work to aid providers in any possible way so that all the providers that are part of our directory can understand how to use it and understand the benefits of being part of our network so her plan stands for her Pregnancy and Life Assistance Network and we are a wonderful free new tool for you all as pregnancy clinic directors to be able to find resources. And I don’t just mean a list of resources, I actually mean a map that is searchable and filterable and customizable for right now. 11 states, soon to be 29 states that will have this kind of pre vetted pro-life resources. Everything from child care to food banks to doctors and lawyers and counselors, you name it we have gone out to find it for you and vet it for you so that you can trust and use this directory to refer your clients to services.
Jacob Barr :
Wow so this is going beyond pregnancy clinics and going into you said lawyers and doctors. How would you describe that scope? You know, when it comes to going beyond some of these sort of, yeah, How would you describe some of the different groups that you’re including in the directory?
Chaney Mullins :
That’s a great question so we call it comprehensive care and that includes medical, social and material resources. So really the comprehensive care concept is that we should be knowing about not just pregnancy clinics and pregnancy help organizations, but really any organization that might benefit a pregnant or parenting woman. So our scope is the 1st 1000 days of life from conception to age 2. And that could be a woman who’s currently pregnant or a woman or family who’s parenting a young child and just needs a little help and support. So we’ve organized all those comprehensive medical, social and material resources into 7 categories of care. And those categories are based on the reasons why women say that they need an abortion. So our first category is mentorship she literally doesn’t know what to do and she needs someone to walk alongside her and discuss options and that’s where pregnancy centers are listed. And then we have health and well-being where expanded medical services, OBGYN care, some Pap smears and well women exams that increasingly pregnancy clinics are beginning to do. That belongs under our health and well-being category along with fertility and lactation and postpartum support even a postpartum fitness class or a birth photographer can be a part of our directory in that category. And then we have financial and work and education so financial assistance is clearly a huge reason why women really feel empowered to be able to choose life when they are cared for and when they realize that the situation is not as dire as they may have originally anticipated. And of course, along with finances naturally comes their education and their career prospects. And then we have our material or legal support category so that’s your basic needs, your food, your clothing, your shelter, your transportation and legal services, which can be everything from a landlord dispute to needing a restraining order on an abusive partner. And so it’s really important to be that broad for us. And then that leads us to the recovery and mental health category, which includes addiction or suicide problems. It includes different professional counseling opportunities, women who may have suffered from domestic violence or sex trafficking or sexual assault recovery groups and resources for them are extremely important on their journey. And of course, abortion recovery itself is part of looking at a woman and her overall mental health. And then we have prenatal diagnosis. So that includes disability support organizations it includes special medical conditions where there’s special needs or complex care that’s required or NICU stays and what we can do to support a mom facing that. And then there’s perinatal Hospice where a child has a life limiting condition and may not survive long outside the womb, but we can still carry to term and support the woman as she gives the child whatever time is left with love and dignity. And then of course when she’s facing the grief of that loss or other types of miscarriage or still birth, we want to provide support resources for her there as well. And then finally, it’s our care for children category, Our child care providers, our pediatricians, adoption, foster care, short term care that’s all included under Care for Children because we of course care as much about mom and baby we don’t just care about the baby until they’re born, but we care about mom and baby all the way through. Pro abundant life, pro love, pro care, and loving them both.
Jacob Barr :
Wow oK So what I’m what I’m hearing is that this is like a an amazing tool to support word of mouth by essentially helping a young woman facing, you know, facing one of these scenarios, finding resources that will support her life decision or a you know a life minded decision. It also sounds like these would also be used for a professional word of mouth referral for from one group referring to another life minded group. How would you define your audience of who’s using this directory like what does that look like to you as part of the group that’s making this directory?
Chaney Mullins :
Exactly so we are targeting those service providers we want them to join the program and to learn how to use the tools so that then they can be the ones to introduce it to the clients that they serve. So I have no direct interaction, nor does anyone at her plan with women in need themselves we are building that relationship with the provider. We are helping the helpers and instead of doing direct services, we leave that to you all you are the experts, you wonderful pregnancy clinic directors and leaders of all these other wonderful types of service providers. And we feel like our role is to equip you by doing that research to keep your referral list up to date to give you this wonderful tool that’s becoming an app and can be something we can offer free training for your advocates or care navigators so that people can feel equipped to OK, I have a woman before me. She has this advanced need. What can I do to connect her with the needed services and on our platform we actually have the ability to help you know how to sign your client up for a free profile so that you can copy her on a HIPAA secure encrypted message with another provider that you’re referring her to and the client herself. So it becomes this wonderful 3 way communication where you can actually have a three-way message and introduce the woman to her next service provider and it’s all completely free.
Jacob Barr :
Wow, that that’s beautiful and exciting. I can see the value of what you’re bringing to this pro-life world of helping people find other pro-life minded service providers. And so is there any kind of like rating or is it more of like a yes or a no when it comes to someone being in the network?
Chaney Mullins :
Great question sO the way we do it is we actually have a registration form and every provider regardless of their category of care, even the food banks, they have to agree not to support or refer for abortion because you never know what office she’s going to walk into and people notice she’s pregnant and they start doing referrals and all the sudden she ends up at a Planned Parenthood so it’s very important for us to put in your hand a resource directory that’s already pre vetted for life affirming status. And so we use that term, life affirming because not every provider might be familiar or comfortable with the term pro-life if they have baggage or think that means they have to be political or something. So our focus is on the services so that’s why we use this term life affirming services. And as long as the provider can pledge that they don’t support or refer for abortion, they can register into our system. And then they go into what we call our compliance process and our compliance process looks at each individual provider and make sure that they’re meeting basic standards. If they’re required to be licensed in their state, do they have that license? Are they credentialed in some way? If they don’t require a license if maybe they’re a housing provider that can fill out our very basic housing checklist. So through this, we’re vetting that extra layer to make sure they’re not only life affirming but also of high quality and you can trust them when building relationships with them and referring clients to them so.
Jacob Barr :
According to your website, it looks like you currently work with, I want to say 9 states or somewhere in that ballpark, and there’s like about nine more coming soon. If someone listening is in one of your current states, in one of your future states, or maybe they’re in a state that’s not even on the coming soon list, could they register can any one of those you know, can someone anywhere in the country register in order to sort of be, you know, on a future coming soon if they’re not on the current coming soon list of states?
Chaney Mullins :
So anyone can reach out to me at any time at info@herplan.org and I can let you know whether we’re coming to your state and what the process is for that. We’ve actually published 11 directories and with will be a total of 29 states, which is super exciting once we get up to our full strength. And we actually have six states which currently have a full time state coordinator. So what that means is that in addition to the directory itself, there’s a full time employee dedicated to that state that lives in that state and builds relationships with the providers there, introduces them to each other, teaches them how to use the directory and also engages the church in the community in helping assistance providers and joining an entire safety net of pro-life care. So we’re really excited about those six states where we’re focusing a lot of energy with that state coordinator and that’s Virginia, West Virginia, Mississippi, Georgia, Texas and Tennessee. So if you’re particularly in one of those states, I’d like to particularly encourage you to reach out to me at info@herplan.org because I can personally connect you with your state coordinator who will want to meet with you and explain more about their particular priorities for the events and the networking opportunities in that state.
Jacob Barr :
Ok, that makes sense. So how often would someone be revisited when it comes to them following the standards or reagreeing like, is this an annual agreement is this, you know when someone agrees it’s there until someone flags that organization possibly, Or you know more? More realistically, maybe they just stay approved without being flagged i would expect, but yeah, what’s that, What’s that look like for someone to stay, you know, being marked is following the standards for many years perhaps.
Chaney Mullins :
So the plan and the hope is that every three years we will do a full audit to just make sure that all the information is still up to date and in addition to that, we do an ongoing licensure check so we put in when a license would expire and check for renewals on an ongoing basis. And we also have the ability for feedback to be given, as you were saying, if somebody wanted to flag something incorrect or something they’re concerned about with the provider listed, they can always use the feedback button on directory. Dot her plan dot org. And then if a provider themselves, maybe they’ve moved locations and they want to update their address or they’ve added a new service that they want to put through compliance and get listed, that’s easy to do if they have a free provider profile online, they can then see their listing and requests for changes and updates to be made. So we’re trying to have that multi pronged approach to ensure that all of our data is up to date. And of course it also helps that we have a relationship with the provider we’re not listing them on our main network without first talking to them. And so we’re making sure all those details are up to date we actually have a team of over 15 directory analysts who work part time to ensure that all the information is really accurate and detailed on our directory. So we have staff dedicated to that and we really value the quality of our listings.
Jacob Barr :
So what’s the most volatile directory data do you have hours of operation listed, or is it primarily like addresses and website addresses? Like, what’s the most likely piece of data that might expire over the course of time?
Chaney Mullins :
So we chose not to have hours for that exact reason. But of course we have website data, we have descriptions. If a group is only offered maybe one day a week, we can explain that we have 3 levels of data so we have organization level, which means the entire organization and the whole, the overall website or the overall headquarters and what they’re doing. And then that breaks down into the level of the site so this is the locations, and we have physical locations, but then we’re also able to accommodate virtual locations and home visit locations. So a virtual location could be for one state or it could be for several states or the whole nation so we’re able to code that appropriately to display on our map. And furthermore, with a home visit, it might mean that you’re willing to go to the client’s home or you want the client to come meet you at say, a coffee shop or a church or some kind of neutral location so it’s really a wonderful way to reflect that service as a location available on our map. And then besides the overall organization in the various sites and locations, we have the services and so that’s our 25 subcategories of care and each of those fit under our seven categories that we discussed earlier. And so one organization might have five different locations, in each of those locations are doing two or three services and so it really, it’s amazing to see all the different offerings available when we’re able to drill down on those 3 levels of data.
Jacob Barr :
Wow, so when it comes to this directory, are is each location you know each listing? Is it completely public or does a serve you know does someone need to have special access to build to browse the directory contents?
Chaney Mullins :
So it is public, It is on directory. Dot her plan dot org and right there you’ll see our ability to take a quiz if you don’t know where to start, you can walk the client through a quiz that can give customized results and recommended searches. You can go straight to our map and start filtering by your state, a particular client’s address. Maybe you want to look and see what all the adoption agencies are in your state and you can actually save a custom list to your provider profile. And all those various lists can be easy to access the next time you need a particular pre filtered search. So it’s meant to be easily accessible. And of course women who are in need directly, they will be able to find it or be introduced to it by a provider. But again, the primary audience is the providers and then it’s designed to have the provider walk a woman through it so she can become more familiar.
Jacob Barr :
Ok. And I can from someone that comes from the marketing background, I can see that you’re having a clinic’s website link on your directory is going to give each person listed or each group listed a backlink which is like an SCO point for helping someone show up better on Google. And so that’s really good that it’s public and that there’s a page per location because that’s something that will help when it comes to the, yeah, the SCO work to show up better on Google for these different groups.
Chaney Mullins :
It’s wonderful how each location page you can actually share a deep link directly to that location page. So if you found that perfect provider and you want to send a woman that link to recommend that provider to her and maybe a few others that she might take advantage of, you can text her direct links. And it just makes so much sense to have something that is prepared and as opposed to having to have her go through the whole process of filtering like you’ve already done. And so this just makes it convenient to be able to save lists, save providers, share your favorite searches it’s all completely available in our features.
Jacob Barr :
Ok, that’s awesome. And I know that there’s so like there’s a well different directories have different maybe purposes or you know thresholds or standards. I know that there’s like, yeah, I believe heartbeat has a directory and nifla has a directory and then there’s a few other directories. And I’m just wondering if someone else wanted to have a directory that reflected some of the data or the some of the work that your team has put together. Would you allow another group to like publish this content on their directory or what sort of yeah, what like what would that look like if someone wanted to have a new directory and they wanted to pull in your content that’s been well vetted and is being well prepared.
Chaney Mullins :
Well, we definitely aspire to be a go to directory of all kinds, but we’re so grateful for those other directories because they have served as discovery sources for us and a lot of them are designed as a list so you see a various list of all the pregnancy clinics in a certain state for example. And so we’re able to learn from those and then contact them to see if they want to be a part of her plan. And we’re hoping that the her plan map capability really steps that up to the next level because of that location filtering available with a map as opposed to just the list of course, there’s value in every list because for some, sometimes you’re not going to want to look for everything all at once you do want to go and see just an abortion recovery, healing on support after abortion, or just a pregnancy help organization on Heartbeat. And on other times, you do want to see the comprehensive care approach that we have, where everything’s all together. So it’s there’s just a place for all of us in the pro-life movement and it’s exciting to see the way that we’ve learned from each other and can help each other and we are building national partnerships with some of those groups so that we can encourage their affiliates for example, to join her plan. We’ve sponsored some conferences or had an email sent out on our behalf for example, the American College of Pediatricians has been of wonderful support and telling their membership about her plan it’s completely free so what can you lose you just can fill out the registration form and get your name out there and become part of this network. And then if for some reason you’re not seeing the resources that you normally refer to on our directory, we do have a way on our website on her plan.org to recommend a resource. And you can always copy me and fill at her plan.org on an intro email to another group. Or if maybe there’s a group that’s not fully pro-life but you still trust them and they’re doing great work in your community, we have a place called Additional Resources that lists groups like that, as well as government resources and offices per state, and that really provides that extra avenue and just in case the pro-life safety net isn’t yet strong enough in a particular area for a particular need, we can then go to our separate map and see additional resources.
Jacob Barr :
Awesome yeah, that makes. Yeah so yeah, it sounds like a really good encouragement for people to find out if they’re listed and then to share their desire to be listed as a way to help people make their locations and groups more visible, as well as getting backlinks, which will help on Google. As part of Google looks at many factors and backlinks is 1 and it’s like that’s just one more point in the right direction. So what’s your back story for being passionate about serving and devoting, you know, all this time and energy into the pro-life space like what? How would you describe your passion or what’s your back story to being in the space?
Chaney Mullins :
Well, I’ve cared about this issue of abortion actually since I was very young and my mom explained to me what abortion was. And I remember that moment, and I remember turning to her and asking the question why? And I believe that it was at that moment that the Holy Spirit marked my life to work against any reason why that a woman might give for having an abortion, which is exactly what we’re doing with her plan. As I learned each reason, I felt that there would be a better answer and a better solution than turning to abortion to meet a problem that was fixable in another life affirming way. And so as I grew, I went to college and got involved at a pregnancy center and felt like I just wanted to do more and more and I wasn’t sure exactly what the more looked like. And I learned more about different service models and ended up being exposed to the work of Doctor John Burchowski, who was a former abortionist turned pro-life OBGYN with a very compelling story he just came out with his autobiography called 2 Patients, which is about his journey of seeing each pregnant woman as two patients, a mom and a baby, and learning to value and love both of them. And through my relationship with his practice, Tepiac, OBGYN and the nonprofit arm Divine Mercy Care, I learned a lot about the medical side of the pro-life movement and the need for increased prenatal care. And as I learned more about the medical side, I then was able to meet with a few of the patients who also had other needs they needed a legal clinic they needed some help with another older toddler that they had. They needed some professional counseling. And so as I built a relationship with these few women, I realized that it wasn’t no one service provider had all the answers in terms of the pro-life movement that it became really important to me to value everyone’s contributions and to find a way to work together. And so at Divine Mercy Care, we piloted plan as a pro-life alliance of Northern Virginia and we’re extremely blessed to be acquired by Susan B Anthony pro-life America, who really had already been sowing a lot of seeds for a bigger vision for a supportive life affirming network that would be multiple states. And through their vision, they took our pilot project and made it far more expansive and really helped flesh out a full vision for what this could be. And so I began working for Susan B Anthony pro-life America and I’ve been doing so for the past three years, and it brings me so much joy to see the growth that we’ve undergone with developing a state coordinator team, developing a directory analyst group. To have so many people devote themselves to this mission of comprehensive care and of helping them both, and valuing mom and baby on the service side of the movement, it’s very powerful to me.
Jacob Barr :
And one of one of my questions and you mentioned that there you had several state, you know several people in charge of a single state in order to facilitate all of that directory work in those particular states. Is that I was wondering how is if this is a free listing how where’s the compensation coming from the for the hours that it takes to do all this vetting and work and is Susan B Anthony are they helping financially when it comes to fundraising for this you know filling this need and this area or is there a like a how does how does your group I guess pay for the bills that are that are part of this ministry.
Chaney Mullins :
We are so blessed to have so many donors at Susan B Anthony pro-life America we are officially a project of SBA Pro-life America, and the Development department has really found amazing individuals and foundations who believe in this larger vision of doing a full scale audit of what there is available to women and then finding the gaps and working with local communities to fill those gaps. It’s a compelling vision and it’s never been done on this scale before with all these different types of service providers, some of which have been serving pregnant and parenting women for years, but they’ve never thought of themselves as part of the pro-life movement because they also serve all these other populations. And so we’re able to come alongside them and say, no, you’re able to accept pregnant women in this homeless shelter you are part of the pro-life safety net come join our life affirming services movement and learn what else is out there. Did you know there’s something called a pregnancy center? Did you know there’s something called a maternity home if a woman needs something more ongoing than your shelter services? And it is so awesome to see these light bulbs come on and these service providers saying, oh, I do have a role to play in this beautiful movement of helping pregnant and parenting women and families.
Jacob Barr :
Now, yeah so like, it just feels like you’re the veins between these different body parts and you’re essentially helping people connect with each other and just be aware that the other parts of the pro-life body exists and that they can connect and sort of helping people discover those connections. That’s really awesome.
Chaney Mullins :
And they start cheering each other on and they start referring to each other and they start saying, I had no idea that this even existed i didn’t know there was an addiction program that allowed women to bring in their children with them so they didn’t have to be separated from them while they got sober. I didn’t realize what a doula was. I didn’t know that there were lawyers that had wonderful Christian legal clinics that could help pregnant women. These providers are out there, and they’re doing amazing work, and they’re so busy serving people that sometimes the word about them doesn’t get out and so we’re able to magnify the message and help other providers learn about them.
Jacob Barr :
Wow well, this is. Well, I just love the fact that you’re feeling this whole or this need that many people didn’t observe or you know that was needed and but it obviously it’s providing benefit to those connected and it’s helping. Yeah, essentially drive referrals like that’s really what you’re doing and you know, so over the last 11 years, 11 years ago, word of mouth by a friend or professional was the number one reason why anyone went into a Prancy clinic. And then about 11 years ago that started to switch in bigger communities where now it’s Google’s taking that number one spot for why someone comes into most Prancy clinics, at least for communities that are like 50.000 thousand or more in a given county. And but essentially word of mouth hasn’t fallen off the map it’s just dropped into the number two spot. And but essentially you’re helping on both fronts you’re helping on the word of mouth front by helping empower people to know where to provide a professional word of mouth referral or possibly a personal word of mouth referral. And you’re also helping when it comes to that SEO score with backlinks. And by having this directory of pages, it is essentially helping everyone who’s linked from this directory with one more popularity point that Google can then measure and helping those groups compete in the yeah for being found on Google and so just yeah, I just want to point out that this is really helping people find life affirming resources and groups.
Chaney Mullins :
I love your marketing mind putting it like that exactly what we’re trying to do and it’s a wonderful tool, because even when you’re Googling around for a resource for a woman, you can’t be sure that resource is life affirming ensure that resource is vetted and you don’t necessarily know how close it is to her if there would be another that’s a better fit for her price point or her location. So it’s amazing to bring all of that data into one place on directory. Dot her plan dot org and go in and filter by her location look at whether she needs a virtual or a home visitor, a physical location. Figure out her price point figure out special qualifications like if she’s looking for a mentorship resource we can filter for whether ultrasound is available at a pregnancy center or clinic, so there’s all these different filter capabilities that can help find the exact right resource for the client that you as a provider are serving.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah and I can and imagine like when it comes to all the work it takes to vet and to maintain a directory and keeping it up to date, there’s got to be room for a team effort between nifla and heartbeat and carenet and these different other directories. I mean, it just feels like there’s there is room for the data to become more accurate amongst these different directories while also having the economy of scale of having less hours poured into it by sharing and working together. And so I just love how you’ve got this team effort behind your mission and your work, essentially helping everyone listed. And so that’s just beautiful.
Chaney Mullins :
We love and Heartbeat and care net. It’s so interesting we work with them and many other pregnancy center networks and at the NIFLA conference last year, I won a free booth for the next year and I got to speak at Care Net last year and Heartbeat, I’ve been working on a big prenatal diagnosis project with them. So it’s so much fun to collaborate with these giants of the movement and what those three have done for the pregnancy clinic movement there’s no way we could ever replicate that. So what we are is really not the expert in pregnancy centers or how to run them we’re just a tool in the tool belt for these pregnancy centers and clinics so they can have accurate referral list.
Jacob Barr :
Awesome so as we wrap up this podcast, what would be your top prayers that you would like people to hear as they’re considering you know, here we are in this new year 2023 What would you like people to consider praying for as they’re listening to this on their daily commute? And as this podcast is wrapping up, what would you encourage them to consider praying?
Chaney Mullins :
I would say please pray for open doors and open hearts for people that are hearing about her plan for the first time in their state and might not understand it yet, and just that they’d be willing to hear about it and willing to fill out their form and join the directory. If we could increase our directory listings, that would be wonderful we already have over a thousand sites, but we want to quadruple that number and have many resources all across the categories and subcategories of care. It would be wonderful if no matter where you were, there was a resource that fit your particular need of your particular subcategory you were searching for. So please pray for more listings on our directory and please do recommend resources to us get in touch with me info@herplan.org isn’t my email and find ways to introduce us to service providers that you might know in your community so we can get those directory listings already and published and in use and then just that people would use the directory and just in be invite our state coordinators to train their staff to train their volunteers to attend the various networking events. We just really want to bless the work of those state coordinators who are on the ground and training in their individual states, so.
Jacob Barr :
The state coordinators, how would you compare one of your state coordinators with our group? I’m not sure. Are you familiar with Alliance for Life in Missouri and like and what sort of. So what would it what was is there overlap or how would you compare an Alliance for Life group like with Marsha Middleton, an Alliance for Life in Missouri to what a state coordinator is trying to do to bring people together? Is that is there some overlap there perhaps?
Chaney Mullins :
Great question so typically with the state coalitions, they’re going to be dealing particularly with pregnancy help organizations. So the way that that’s defined is pregnancy centers and clinics some states stop there and really focus on building up and encouraging that demographic, which is super important. And then other types of pregnancy help organizations or pH OS for short, include adoption agencies and maternity homes and in some cases social services or Catholic charities types organizations as well as abortion recovery of course, which often happens at a pregnancy center, but increasingly as independent organizations as well. So that’s the world of pregnancy help organization. So that again are providers that are really targeted to pregnant or parenting women specifically as opposed to our comprehensive model where there’s lots of providers serving lots of different people that just happens to include a pregnant or parenting client. And so a state coordinator would work very closely with their state coalition of pregnancy centers or pregnancy help organizations and try to resource them and care for them we just sponsored Marsha Middleton’s conference for Alliance of Life Missouri because we want to encourage all of those pregnancy help organizations to be listed on our directory and to use the directory for referral but also take advantage of the state coordinator events where they can meet not only other pregnancy help boards, but really this whole gamut of a pro-life doctor, a pro-life lawyer, a pro-life child care provider, a pro-life professional counselor which you might not be able to network with in just a state coalition.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah, that makes perfect sense it’s sort of like you’re essentially increasing the scope of the word pro-life or life affirming and like and for a long time we’ve been playing with like I like to use the word milk when it comes to trying to understand scope because we’ve all understand that there’s 2 %, there’s whole milk, 1 % and fat free. But you’re essentially taking it to the next level where we now have almond milk, we have dairy free milk, we have, you know, the buttermilk, we’ve got these other options in here. And so there’s essentially that you’re essentially adding more scope into that life affirming phrase versus it just being in that PHO world of Prancy help organizations Now we’re yeah, we’re essentially going yeah essentially going into the thousand days, of you know, helping someone as a new parent for a thousand days, whereas Prancy help organizations are primarily built on before birth and after birth, but maybe not going to the extent of some of these yeah, greater scope concepts, you know these rated organizations complementary.
Chaney Mullins :
Because we still need those pregnancy help organization networks, just like the lawyers still need to get together at their Christian lawyer conferences, you know, So it’s important to have that particular professional development offerings that state coalitions provide for pregnancy help organizations. We aren’t really a professional development organization, although occasionally we’ll introduce you to experts that we know of that can speak on different topics. But our primary focus is on the directory and is on introducing you to service providers across that big range of needs that a pregnant or parenting woman has.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah The body of Christ is incredibly it covers a great deal of scope and the body of Christ applied to the pro-life world has again a great deal of scope and very often a lot of us deal with a certain portion of the body and we don’t necessarily have the vision for all the other body parts that are also working you know orchestrated together. And so that’s just beautiful to see yeah. I think of the veins again, as you’re connecting people who are. Maybe not next to each other, but they have the same mission and they have the and they have like a sister connection and stuff like.
Chaney Mullins :
Well, absolutely exactly.
Jacob Barr :
Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much for being on this podcast. Do you have any last thoughts that you’d like to share as we’re wrapping this up?
Chaney Mullins :
I would really just encourage service providers to learn from each other. And it’s great to see providers that aren’t as familiar with traditional pregnancy help organizations learning about that world and then vice versa and referring to each other and becoming this wonderful network of cross referrals. And so I just encourage you to be a part of her plan i know that sometimes you worry about being listed on directories or if that opens you up to attack and we’ve just really found that everyone who joins her plan feels like it’s a layer of protection and a layer of help by being in community with all these great service providers and really showing very obviously how much care and support there are available even people that aren’t pro-life can look at our directory and admire the work that we’re doing and understand pregnancy help organizations in terms of this whole context of available care for pregnant and parenting women and families. So please come and be a part of us and if you have any questions, if you wanna meet your state coordinator, if you want to have a directory training, if you have a need to talk this through with your board, please contact me anytime at info@herplan.org and.
Jacob Barr :
When I look at your directory, I don’t see AI feel like it’s completely focused on the client providing services or the organization provided A referral and I don’t see the donate button i don’t see any content about getting involved and joining our, you know, support team. And so I feel like you’re honoring the people who are listed by focusing on promoting their services and driving traffic to where it needs to go, more so than trying to have like a double audience of client and donor on this page, which might leverage the address of the client, you know, of the organization being listed in some way. And so I feel like that’s beautiful and there’s several directories that have that same mentality of focusing on the appropriate audience and not having a double audience. Not all directories hold that model, but I would say almost all of them do almost all of them have a focus on the right audience of helping clients and organizations do referrals when it comes to the directories that I’m familiar with.
Chaney Mullins :
Absolutely that’s very important to us because we have herplan.org if someone wants to learn more about our church program, we have a whole guide for churches to get involved, which features models that have been used across the country by many different types of organizations that have found effective ways to partner with service providers or begin their own direct assistance programs. And we’re so excited about that but it should live in its own space, just as you were saying, Jacob and so you can go to herplan.org to learn about that but if what you’re looking for is the directory, it’s directory. Dot her plan dot org and it’s designed to be clean, crisp, user friendly we custom designed it using a wonderful vendor and it’s important for us to have that clear messaging on that page as you were saying.
Jacob Barr :
So I might have this one. My last question might be harder to answer, but I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to handle it. What happens when someone says I don’t want our clinic to be listed what’s so do you? Do you respond by trying to provide education and resources that explain how this is a beneficial idea? And then ultimately, do you honor the request to maybe drop off if that’s really what they wish?
Chaney Mullins :
Of course so on our main map, we don’t list anyone without their permission. And if for some reason a group is on additional resources that wants to be taken off, we can honor that absolutely. We do have a wonderful benefits document and our directory analysts are talking every day to many providers, talking through their questions and their hang ups and understanding the benefits of being a part of her plan. And so I’d be happy to set up a meeting with you and a directory analyst or myself or a state coordinator to talk through all of those questions they’re completely valid and we really want to respect each provider as they’re in this discernment and as they’re becoming a part of this network and we just want you to stay in touch with us and regardless of whether you’re listed or not and just know that we’re here and we want you to use the directory as a referral source and we want this to be hopeful and useful to service providers in our state.
Jacob Barr :
So that is amazing like I just want to say thank you for honoring the requests of people who may choose to not be listed because that’s not always the case in many cases and I think that it actually and I would really encourage anyone who’s thinking I don’t know if I want to be listed I would encourage you to talk about it and find out the benefits because this is a good directory. I don’t you know this is there are some directories that I would say might be better off to not be on but that’s because they mix audiences and this one’s not have that that’s not the case here. This is, this is a way of serving your clients, serving your community, serving your mission as and providing referrals to like minded organizations and so this is this is beautiful and if you’re unsure of you know you think you might be opened up to being more vulnerable to attack. Google probably already knows about your location people can probably find you in other ways so this is a way of being vetted and added to a an approved list. It almost feels a little bit like you’re getting the stamp of approval of yeah so many people will pay extra to be on the Better Business Bureau website and this is you know sort of like that maybe in some regards but for the pro-life world of having like this is a pro-life organization who is trusted by this group running by you know run by Susan B Anthony’s organization slash her plan and so anyways, all I have to say is I think that’s AI think that’s the really kind and friendly, pro-life friendly option to let someone not be on the list. At the same time, I would, I would really encourage anyone who’s thinking they don’t want to be listed to learn more and to really understand the benefits, because I don’t think they’re opening themselves up to new risk at all by being on this list.
Chaney Mullins :
Thank you Jacob, the marketing expert for making such a cool and being so supportive.
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