Partner Partner Content A digital hub for community care: New PrenatalPath.com makes family resources more accessible

This story was made possible by support from the St. Joseph Community Health Foundation.

More than a decade ago, the St. Joseph Community Health Foundation (SJCHF) started printing a directory of prenatal and family resources designed to meet a long-felt need in the community. Families didn’t know where to find affordable supplies and support in areas like prenatal care, child development and financial assistance.  

“The idea for the original print directory came from a meeting with 30 to 40 community partners who were working to address infant mortality,” says Meg Distler, executive director of the St. Joseph Community Health Foundation. “One of the biggest issues identified was that people didn’t know where to go for critical resources. We realized we needed something community-wide and accessible to everyone.”

That early printed directory became a trusted guide not just for local people in need, but also for the case managers at the organizations across Allen County who serve them. As needs evolved over the years, leaders in the community voiced a desire for a more adaptive, responsive resource. The advisory board of the Prenatal & Infant Care Network, which was launched in 2015 by the St. Joseph Community Health Foundation and Healthier Moms & Babies to promote quality prenatal and infant care in the community, shared this need with the Foundation.

“We kept coming back to conversations about accessibility,” says Jackie Martinez, community impact director at SJCHF. “We told families to put their babies in a safe crib, but where do they go if they can’t afford one?”

It became clear that people needed more than information; they needed a tool that would offer instant, reliable insight.

Conversations with representatives from the community led the St. Joseph Community Health Foundation to develop PrenatalPath.com, an online portal that provides the information from the long-standing printed directory in a searchable, user-friendly hub of family resources that transforms the way local families and frontline workers connect with care. The site officially launched this year after the Foundation received a $50,000 Health First Allen County grant, administered by the Allen County Department of Health.

“This wasn’t us just applying for a grant because we wanted to build a website,” says Martinez. “Every step was driven by feedback from moms and people on the ground — social workers, community health workers and case managers — who communicated their most common challenges and requested more resources. This whole project started with us listening to the community and coming alongside them to develop a solution.”

The website’s implementation was spearheaded by Mark Burkholder, projects and multimedia manager at SJCHF. Burkholder translated the printed directory into an interactive digital platform, and he continues to monitor the website activity to see what areas garner the most interest and how that data can inform solutions the Foundation develops in the future.

“I’m thrilled that PrenatalPath.com is quickly becoming an invaluable digital companion to our printed directories, helping families access quality, affordable perinatal care in Allen County,” says Burkholder. “The site’s usage data provides the foundation with real-time insights into emerging trends and evolving needs among expectant and new parents.”

In the four months since its launch, the website has generated nearly 2,000 pageviews from users in northeast Indiana, and several partners in the community have helped get the resource into the right hands. Their feedback guided the project’s development, from search filters to the marketing materials that would help the community discover the tool.

To the foundation’s leadership, serving the “helpers” of the community is just as important as serving the vulnerable and at-risk populations. When Distler and Matt Smith, the foundation’s new chief executive officer, who will fully assume leadership when Meg Distler retires at the end of 2025, engage with local agencies, they see not only the clients but also the people who are working on the front lines.

“Our local agencies are doing incredible work,” Distler says. “If we can make it easier for families to reach them, that’s exciting. We know when someone walks through the doors of any organization on the Prenatal Path website, they’ll be taken care of.”

Julie Reece, a registered nurse and director of the Journey Beside Mothers ministry of Associated Churches of Fort Wayne & Allen County, says the shift has made the resource far easier to use in day-to-day work.

“Now that the Prenatal Directory is available online, I can access the information wherever I am, as long as I have my phone with me,” Reece says. “The layout on the homepage is so helpful, breaking resources down into accessible categories like safe medication, immunizations and safe sleep classes.”

With the Prenatal Path website, social workers and case managers can give clients a simple URL, and they can type in what they need. Search results show an organization’s ZIP code, category, language and hours of operation. The website also offers an instant translation feature, allowing it to be read in Spanish or Burmese.

“The goal for this project was to keep all the valuable information in the book but take advantage of online features—like translation tools and interactive maps—that make it more usable in real-world situations,” says Burkholder.

At Journey Beside Mothers and A Baby’s Closet, another ministry of Associated Churches, clients receive free diaper bundles to take home. As part of the marketing effort for the new website, the Foundation provided Reece and her team with QR code stickers to put on each diaper bundle.

“This resource is not only helpful for our staff, allowing them to quickly find referrals for the people they serve, but also for clients as they search for resources they need on their own time, even when a case worker isn’t present,” says Reece. “We have had feedback that the mothers have accessed resources through the QR code, which is really encouraging.”

In addition to simplifying the jobs of social workers and case managers, the Prenatal Path website offers a unique advantage that the print resource did not: Leaders at the Foundation can see which organizations and offerings are most important to the community.

“We’re already analyzing how people use the site,” Distler says. “We can see what categories they search for, what gaps may still exist and how we can keep improving. It’s an ongoing dialogue, not something we build and leave behind.”

Early analytics reveal high interest in services like free baby items, housing information, crisis nurseries, safe sleep classes and CPR classes. As more data becomes available, the Foundation intends to deepen partnerships, refine listings and identify areas where they can invest in expanding resources.

“At the St. Joseph Community Health Foundation, our goal is to be responsive,” Burkholder says. “We want real requests, data and experiences guiding our decisions.”

The Foundation hopes to influence at least 2,500 individuals through the new site in its first year. However, Smith and the rest of the Foundation’s leadership team see the project as more than a numerical target.

“Data helps us understand what the community needs, but the relationships we build are just as important,” Smith says. “We look at stories and lived experiences as much as we look at the analytics. If there’s dissonance in the information we gather, we ask why and then we adapt.”

As more families and case managers turn to the Prenatal Path website, the foundation plans to continue refining the tool, strengthening partnerships and expanding its reach.

“We’re at the beginning of this journey,” Distler says. “We’re in the learning and experimenting stages right now, and we’re excited about the future. Mark and Jackie have poured so much time and thought into this, and I look forward to seeing this project continue to thrive under Matt’s leadership in the coming years.”

Over the next several months, the foundation will roll out expanded social media outreach, more partner engagement and deeper analysis of data trends — always grounding its decisions in the same principle that launched its first printed directory, “Listen, learn and respond.”

This story was made possible by support from the St. Joseph Community Health Foundation.