Editable content within perch:before?

I have a few instances where I use perch:before to output a section heading before a multiple item region. I'd like the section heading to be editable but it seems if I create a template such as below, it creates a field for section heading in the admin for every item, not just the one field above the first item as I'd like.

<perch:before>
<div class="section">
    <div class="container">
        <div class="row"> 
            <h2><perch:content id="section_heading" type="smarttext" label="Section heading" /></h2>
</perch:before> 

            <h3><perch:content id="course_title" type="smarttext" label="Course title" /></h3>
              <perch:content id="course_description" type="textarea" label="Course description" markdown="true" editor="markitup" size="s" />

<perch:after>           
        </div>  
    </div>
</div>
</perch:after>

Is editable content within perch:before possible in this way?