What our Nonprofit State Policy Fellows Learn:

• An overview of the State Legislative Process

• State Budget as a Policy

• Creating Individual Calls to Action & Organization Sign on Letters

• Social Media Advocacy

• Communicating Effectively with Policymakers and Staff

• Administrative Advocacy: Working with State Agency Leaders

• Mental Health and the Criminal Justice System

• Addressing Racial Disparities through Policy

At the Conclusion of the 12 Month Program

At the end of the program Fellows will have developed an action plan presented to their peers and leadership. Fellows will continue to receive support through the group listserv.

Time Commitment

Participants are expected to attend 2 hour-long monthly meetings and spend roughly 1-2 hours outside of monthly meetings reviewing materials, engaging in the online community, and meeting with others they identify as important in their state/county, and developing their action plan.

Meet our 2022-2023 Nonprofit State Policy Fellows

MASSACHUSETTS

Doreen Hunter, Nneka Hall - Mother IS Supreme Postpartum Care
Jessie Colbert, Ashlyn Rizzo - Mass. PPD Fund

Nneka Hall is a mother, full-spectrum doula, postpartum care specialist, International bereavement specialist, and maternal health advocate with a primary focus on black maternal and infant mortality. Before she founded Mother IS Supreme, Inc., she founded Quietly United in Loss Together (QUILT) in 2014 which is a Pregnancy And Infant Loss Awareness campaign designed to raise awareness of all types of loss from conception through a child's first two years of life, teach healthy fertility through womb health education, provide support to families who suffer these losses and provide support for memory programs so they won't close due to inability to afford supplies.

She has had amazing opportunities including speaking at Harvard Medical School’s Leadership and Development Program Conference, Postpartum Depression at the Massachusetts State House for Postpartum Depression Day, and the Massachusetts Medical Society’s PQIN Summit. Nneka sits on the Ellen Story Postpartum Postpartum Depression Commission and the Racial Inequities in Maternal Health Commission. She is currently an Ambassador for the United State of Women and Count the Kicks. She sits on the board of Postpartum Support International’s MA Chapter.

Nneka was the guest of Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley at the 2020 State of the Union.

Doreen Hunter is Policy Advocate for Mother is Supreme. Hunter is also the co-founder of the Americas Conference to End Coercive Control, a proud mother, survivor of domestic violence, and advocate for women and children who are fleeing domestic violence. She speaks at conferences to raise awareness of abuse during pregnancy as well as the adverse long-term effects of non-physical abuse on children and adults. In 2021, Hunter spoke at the conference on crimes against women to educate judges, district attorneys, and others in the judicial system about Texas HB 902 a bill that was passed to ensure pregnant women are a protected class. The goal of the workshop was to help encourage others to bring similar legislation to their state or province.

During her emergency C-section when giving birth to her daughter, Hunter coded on the table from the placenta abruption. About 6 months after recovering from her birthing fatality, Hunter was asked to sit on HB 2620 state legislative task force to help Texas elected officials understand the impact of abuse on Texas women. It was there, then Hunter came to understand how non-physical abuse impacted her pregnancy.

In her role as chair of the Texas chapter of the Stop Abuse Campaign, Doreen gave testimony at the Texas Capital to help ensure HB 902 - legislation that would make pregnant women a protected class in Texas - was enacted. She also led a small group that successfully had a bill introduced into the Texas legislature to help protect children. During that legislative cycle, Doreen held on the capital steps a vigil for children who died from child abuse that were connected to Family Court.

Currently, Hunter has an online international study regarding how physical and non-physical abuse impacts pregnancy through the Americas Conference to End of Coercive Control website. The study was launched last fall and has over 150 participants.

Jessie Colbert is the Founder and Executive Director of the Mass. PPD Fund, a nonprofit focused on improving communities’ capacity to address postpartum depression and other new parent mental health challenges. Prior to the Fund's launch, Ms. Colbert served as the Development Director and Assistant Development Director for MassBudget, a state-level think tank. She was also the first Director of the Ellen Story Special Legislative Commission on Postpartum Depression, now a national model on the issue. She currently serves as an appointed Commissioner on that body, on the Mission Committee of March of Dimes New England Market, and on the Boston Women’s Leadership Council. Ms. Colbert lives in Boston with her husband and three children.

Ashlyn Rizzo is a board member and current treasurer of the Mass. PPD Fund. After enduring a 3-year fertility journey and surviving severe postpartum anxiety and depression, Ashlyn was determined to get involved in championing causes for maternal mental health. She believes that better understanding, recognition, and normalizing of these conditions can lead to actionable access to support, care, and healing. Her biggest focuses are bringing services and opportunities to light, finding solutions to fill in the current gaps in programming, and also helping to “Support the Supporters.”

Originally from South Carolina, Ashlyn has lived in Boston, MA for almost 15 years. She is currently the Director of Marketplace Strategy and Operations at Alyce, and has spent her career in logistics and supply chain - building out best-in-class delivery networks, e-commerce operations, and distribution systems. Working for both startup companies and Fortune 500 businesses, Ashlyn has experience working across all levels of an organization. She loves to use the foundation she has built in the business world to help shape the framework for the nonprofit arena. Formerly a board member at the Community Art Center in Cambridge, MA, she gained experience working in human resources and non-profit operations. Ashlyn is an avid sports fan and even does a weekly podcast for the Carolina Panthers. She lives with her husband, Brian, and their preschool son, Ollie.

NORTH CAROLINA

Erin Crites, Qu’Nesha Sawyer - Postpartum Support International -North Carolina

Erin Crites is the treasurer of Postpartum Support International’s (PSI) North Carolina chapter and has been volunteering with PSI since 2019. Erin’s passion for all things birth has brought her to the field of maternal mental health to support families in having the most support during such a pivotal time in their lives. As a survivor of postpartum anxiety, Erin channels her own experiences when it comes to supporting families through her roles as a support group facilitator, Climb Out of the Darkness leader, and birth doula. She believes that every family deserves to be armed with the knowledge and tools to make informed choices and to use their voices to advocate for their rights. As a native of northeast North Carolina, Erin has firsthand experience with the lack of resources and access to care for new families. Through her volunteer work with PSI-NC and 2020Mom, she focuses on connecting families to community resources in order to rebuild the village that’s desperately needed in the 21st century.

Qu’Nesha Sawyer, PhD, LCMHC, LPCC, LCAS, NCC is a licensed clinical psychotherapist specializing in reproductive mental health and wellness. For over eight years, she has dedicated her clinical practice to providing culturally responsive perinatal mental health services to women of color and women of traditionally underrepresented and underserved backgrounds.

Through her work, Qu’Nesha is a strong advocate for normalizing a birthing person’s experience before, during, and after pregnancy and desires to facilitate a narrative shift about perinatal mental health.

She is cross-trained as a birth doula and leverages this background to further support individuals navigating their childbirth experiences. Qu’Nesha currently resides in Bay Area California and maintains a bi-coastal clinical practice.

WISCONSIN

Felica Turner-Walton, Chandra Lewis - Healing Our Hearts Foundation

Chandra Lewis is a wife and reproductive justice advocate for all birthing people - especially those within marginalized communities. Drawing on her lived experience as a mother in loss, Chandra is able to serve her communities as a Full Spectrum Doula, Childbirth Educator in Training, Certified Grief Support Specialist with a focus on perinatal loss, and a Wisconsin Certified Peer Specialist who can provide individualized support during and after a loss. Through her work with various community organizations, Chandra is able to discuss how perinatal loss can be perceived, bring awareness to how the simple act or ability of grieving can be a privilege, and highlight how loss is intersectional and can affect all other aspects of being.

Felica Turner-Walton knows the power of presence, CEO and Co-Founder of Healing Our Hearts Foundation was born in Detroit, MI, and raised in Greenwood, MS. Through perseverance, she has worked her way from an insurance claims agent to now holding certification as a Grief Peer Specialist and Grief Educator. In 2019 Felica became a Full Spectrum Doula and in 2021 completed the Grief Educator Program through David Kessler and earned her Certified Grief Educator Certification. In 2022 Felica completed Pregnancy Loss Infant Awareness training with Nneka Hall. She made it her mission to be there for others after going through her own personal journey with loss. Attending multiple support groups, Felica noticed that there weren’t any groups that offered support aimed to handle multiple different experiences that Black people had as related to loss.

After the passing of her 4-month-old son, Zaire, Felica’s life changed forever. “Lots of people don’t know what to say to someone who experiences a major loss,” says Felica. “It’s so important to have support. Healing Our Hearts is focused on removing the misconception related to loss by creating healing conversations around the cycle of life while acknowledging the emotions and feelings associated with bereavement. By removing the stigma and misconception about grief, Healing Our Hearts will help create a more sympathetic world that recognizes “that time doesn’t always heal“ and that no one just “gets over” the loss of a loved one.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Austyn Holleman, Andrea Agalloco - Mary’s Center

Andrea Agalloco MSW, LICSW (she/her) is the Perinatal Mental Health Program Manager at Mary’s Center, a federally qualified community health center in the Washington DC metro area. Mary’s Center serves nearly 60,000 people annually of all ages, incomes, and backgrounds using an integrated model of health care, education, and social services. In her role, Andrea focuses on prevention, clinical services, advocacy, and community building all with a focus on improving perinatal mental health outcomes for Mary’s Center participants.

Andrea is a licensed clinical social worker and has been providing therapy to adults and adolescents since receiving her Master of Social Work degree from Catholic University in 2015. Andrea has worked for more than 20 years in the nonprofit sector in roles varying from nonprofit fundraising, event and conference management, program management, and social work roles within schools and foster care. Andrea is a mother and resides with her family on the outskirts of Washington, DC in Silver Spring, MD.

Austyn Holleman LICSW, MSW, MPH is a Perinatal Mental Health Therapist and Program Coordinator at Mary's Center, a Federally Qualified Health Center in Washington, DC. Austyn is also a community birth doula and in the last year, she has started two Doula Programs at her organization to expand access to birth doula support for birthing people in need. She currently sits on the D.C. Department of Healthcare Finance Advisory Group and is offering her expertise to inform the rolling out of legislation that will expand Medicaid billing for doula services in the District. Her passions include reproductive justice, equitable access to mental health care, and community-based programming and policy work. She is a proud Tarheel, receiving all three of her degrees and her birth doula training at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Austyn is thrilled to expand her knowledge and skills in perinatal mental health advocacy work through this wonderful Fellowship!

Past Participants

2020-2021 Nonprofit State Policy Fellows
2021-2022 Nonprofit State Policy Fellows