Jamie Agunsday is a Master’s prepared Registered Nurse who has spent the last decade serving women and birthing families in New Jersey. As a staff nurse in Labor and Delivery in one of NJ’s busiest birthing hospitals, she worked on projects to improve quality and patient safety, and educate nurses on their role in preventing maternal mortality and morbidity. At the bedside, Jamie was deeply impacted by seeing women and birthing people experience serious pregnancy related complications.

For the last 4 years, Jamie has worked to support the review of maternal deaths as a Maternal Mortality Nurse Abstractor and now Program Coordinator at Central Jersey Family Health Consortium, where she tells the stories of those who died from the impact of their pregnancies to the NJ Maternal Mortality Review Committee.

Jamie has a long history of advocacy. Jamie has lobbied congress and is a nurse educator. She’s served extensively in her professional organization, the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses where she sits on both statewide and national committees, serves on the content advisory board for the AWHONN Insights Podcast, and was designated as an Emerging Leader in 2022.

Jamie’s work crosses sectors into the arenas of public health, the healthcare industry, and patient advocacy. Through her work, Jamie seeks to center the voices and amplify the stories of those most impacted by adverse outcomes as a means to making meaningful improvements in the health of all people giving birth.

Jamie is a lifelong New Jersey resident where she lives with her husband, 2 children, and their dog Moose.

Shanita Alvarez-Crawley is Program Manager for the AtlantiCare Safe Beginnings Program that was designed provide quality, culturally competent prenatal and postpartum care to Atlantic City pregnant women, birthing persons, and their families during pregnancy and the 1^st year of life.  Shanita also serves as the Postpartum Support International NJ Chapter Alliance Chairperson where she advocates for the importance of safe, culturally competent spaces and access to mental health supports for women and birthing persons of color during the perinatal and postpartum period.  As a Licensed Social Worker and a Certified Perinatal Mental Health Provider, Shanita has been integral in creating safe, culturally competent spaces for access to mental health screening, access, and therapeutic supports during the perinatal and postpartum period within the AtlantiCare Women’s and Children Services.   She also serves as a passionate educator of sociology and social work students wishing to enter the profession as an Adjunct Professor and Field Instructor for BSW and MSW students.

 

Shanita’s professional experience was driven by 17 years within the Department of Children and Families Child Protection and Permanency where she served in various field, administrative, and leadership roles where she supported vulnerable populations during some of their most challenging times.  These experiences fueled her passion and desire to support these populations and create spaces for them through the philosophy of preventative approaches.  Shanita uses her systemic knowledge, background, and exposure to guide interventions, support, and advocacy for vulnerable populations on a local and national level and continues to use her voice to advocate for children and families of South Jersey.

Rebecca J. Brand is a professor of psychology at Villanova University.  She received her Ph.D. from the University of Oregon in 2002.  She teaches lifespan human development and has published in the areas of infant cognitive development, parent-infant teaching behaviors, and the role of the basic psychological needs in maternity care.

Joyce McMillan is a thought leader, advocate, community organizer, educator, and the Founder and Executive Director of Just Making A Change for Families (JMACforFamilies).

Joyce’s mission is to remove systemic barriers in communities of color by bringing awareness to the racial disparities in systems where people of color are disproportionately affected. Her ultimate goal is to abolish systems of harm–especially the family policing system (or the so-called “child welfare system”)–while creating concrete community resources. As the Founder of the Parent Legislative Action Network, Joyce leads a statewide coalition of impacted parents and young people, advocates, attorneys, social workers, and academics collaborating to effect systemic change in the family policing system. Joyce also currently serves on the board of the Women’s Prison Association and on the Advisory Committee for the Center for New York City Affairs at The New School, where she holds a visiting fellowship. As a visiting fellow, Joyce explores ways to strengthen parent voices in child welfare and has led a series of public events where panelists discuss both problems and suggested solutions. 

Previously, Joyce led family engagement and advocacy efforts at Sinergia Inc, an organization that works with and to support people with disabilities and their families. Prior to Sinergia, she was the Program Director at the Child Welfare Organizing Project (CWOP), where she created a space for communities of color who have been traumatized by systemic injustices to learn about restorative practices. 

Joyce has served as the co-chair of the W134th Community Association, a member of the NYC County Committee, and a Supreme Court Judicial Delegate. Joyce has also held fellowships with Law4Black Lives and the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls.

Adwoa K. Nantwi serves as a research scientist within the Division of Family Health Services at the New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH), where she is the epidemiologist and program coordinator for the New Jersey Maternal Mortality Review Committee (MMRC), data evaluator for the State Maternal Health Innovation Program (SMHIP), and the coordinator for the New Jersey Fetal-Infant Mortality Review program at NJDOH. Aside from her work at the NJDOH, Adwoa also serves as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at New York University's School of Global Public Health, where she teaches introductory- and intermediate-level epidemiology. She obtained her Master of Public Health from New York University's School of Global Public Health and a Bachelor of Science from the College of New Jersey. Adwoa's mission is to advance research and initiatives that drive equitable health outcomes for women and their children. 

Ria Rodney is the Director of Nurture NJ. She oversees the state strategic plan of the First Lady of NJ to make NJ the safest and most equitable state to have your baby and raise a family. She is a Registered Nurse and social worker with over 15 years of experience in public health and advocacy. As a formally trained doula with a commitment to maternal health, she provides training in reproductive health for both students and public health workers in various capacities. Ria currently serves as a National Board Member for the Accreditation Commission for Midwifery Education and Family Connects International.

Ria’s career is driven by addressing access to quality healthcare as a social justice issue. She utilizes frameworks that are specific to the intersectionality of race, gender, and socioeconomic status. In addition to providing direct care to patients in a healthcare setting, Ria focuses on macro-level systemic change through policy to address challenges and limitations in the United States healthcare system. Her areas of advocacy and research include reproductive justice, the health and mental health needs of pregnant women and their families, and patient safety in the hospital setting. Ria has lived and worked both domestically and internationally, including the Caribbean and South America.

Ria is a proud New Jerseyan and is from Vineland, NJ. Ria holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Johns Hopkins University and a Master of Science in Social Work from Columbia University. She received her Post- Master’s policy training through The Network for Social Work Management Public Policy Fellowship.

Roy Wade is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in the Division of General Pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Wade’s research focuses on decreasing disparities in health caused by exposure to childhood trauma. Prior to attending medical school, Dr. Wade earned a PhD in Microbiology from the Georgia Institute of Technology, using classical genetics approaches to examine the respiratory chain physiology of environmental bacteria. Dr. Wade earned a medical degree from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth in 2007 and completed pediatric residency at the University of Virginia in 2010. Dr. Wade’s career aspirations were further informed by my experience as a Minority Health Policy Fellow at Harvard Medical School where he also earned an MPH in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2011. Dr. Wade completed the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar’s program at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, earning a Master’s of Science in Health Policy in 2013. Securing a Stoneleigh Foundation early career development award, Dr. Wade’s initial work has focused on developing more sensitive childhood adversity measures and promoting the adoption of trauma-informed approaches among health and social service organizations. In conducting this work, Dr. Wade has authored several papers including a qualitative study of adverse childhood experiences amongst urban youth published in Pediatrics in which he found that urban economically distressed youth endorsed a broader set of childhood stressors than those included in the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Study and in many cases used contextually specific language to describe these experiences. In a separate study examining data from a survey of adverse childhood experiences and health outcomes amongst Philadelphia adults published in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect, Dr. Wade found that many of the broader experiences endorsed by young people in his prior qualitative studies were strongly associated with poor health outcomes and certain populations particularly impoverished adults with significant childhood adversity were at increased risk for poor health outcomes such as substance abuse problems and mental disorders. This work received local and national media coverage including stories on National Public Radio and in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Dr. Wade’s research interests also include examining the mechanisms through which significant childhood adversity translate into poor health throughout the life course and negatively impact offspring. Through his work, Dr. Wade plans to translate research on the science of childhood adversity and toxic stress into effective strategies to improve community level systems of care in economically distressed communities.