WV Perinatal Partnership

The Story Behind It

The West Virginia Perinatal Partnership connects families across the state with perinatal care — breastfeeding support, substance-use programs, tobacco cessation, maternal mental health, and NICU/NAS resources. The challenge is that a parent in crisis often doesn't know which of those programs they need, or who to call. This proof of concept is an attempt to make that first step effortless.

It's a volunteer, unfunded POC built to demonstrate feasibility for grant purposes: a mobile-first web app that walks a user through a few plain-language questions and, at the end, tells them exactly who to contact, where the nearest resource is, and what else is available. The goal was to put something real and clickable in front of WVPP staff so the routing logic and question set can later be defined together, once funded.

How It Works

The user opens the app on their phone and is guided through a short decision tree: they share their location (device GPS or a zip code), describe their concern, indicate whether they've already spoken with a provider, and pick a topic area. Each answer narrows the path. The final results page surfaces a matched WVPP coordinator to contact, the nearest service location with directions, and additional hotlines and educational resources.

Crucially, the entire question set and routing logic live in a JSON decision tree — so non-developers at WVPP can update questions and pathways without touching any code.

Technical Details

• Frontend

  React 18 + Vite + TypeScript — A fast, mobile-first single-page app scaffolded with Vite. React Router handles navigation between the welcome, location, question, and results screens.

• Styling

  Tailwind CSS — Responsive, phone-optimised styling using a palette derived from the WVPP brand (dark teal #1b4965 with a lighter blue accent). Built to WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards.

• Logic

  JSON decision tree — Questions, answers, branches, and provider matches are defined entirely in data files, so the flow can be reconfigured by non-developers with no code changes.

• Location

  Geolocation API + zip lookup — "Find nearest" functionality resolves the user's position via GPS or manual zip/address entry, then links out to Google Maps for directions.

• Deployment

  PWA on GitHub Pages — Installable to the home screen with offline support via a service worker, deployed as a static SPA through a GitHub Actions workflow. Fully public — no authentication required.

What It Represents

This one matters to me because it's technology aimed squarely at people who need help at a vulnerable moment — and because West Virginia is where my own path into data and research began. It's a small, honest demonstration that a well-designed decision tree can turn confusion into a phone number and a set of directions. The next phase, if funded, is to define the real question set and routing logic hand-in-hand with WVPP staff and expand it to native Android and iOS from the shared core.