On Demand: Region 7 Maternal Health ECHO® Summit

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On Demand: Region 7 Maternal Health ECHO® Summit

Bridging Community and Health Systems to Help Mothers Thrive

Maternal health outcomes in Region 7 reveal a critical gap - and a powerful opportunity. On May 26, the Kansas Health Institute offered a session which brought together community members and clinical professionals to explore how Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas can work collaboratively to help mothers thrive. Participants learned practical strategies for bridging community wisdom with health system expertise, heard real-world insights from those closest to the work and gained a clearer understanding of emerging maternal health needs across our region.

This summit launched a new ECHO series shaped by partner input and grounded in the priorities identified by communities themselves. Join us to listen, learn and collaborate to improve maternal health for all. Learn more about the Maternal Health Echo series.

An on-demand video of the Summit will be posted soon.

Speakers

Keynote: An Overview of the Maternal Health Landscape in the United States

• Sanaa Akbarali, M.P.H., P.M.P., Senior Director, Maternal and Child Health, Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO)
  Sanaa Akbarali is the Senior Director of Maternal and Child Health at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO), where she leads a national portfolio focused on advancing maternal and child health policy. With more than a decade of experience, she specializes in shaping state and federal public health strategies, managing complex grant programs and providing technical assistance to health agencies. Akbarali is a skilled leader known for building cross-sector partnerships and guiding multidisciplinary teams to implement evidence-based solutions that improve outcomes for women, infants and families. Her work has strengthened state capacity in areas such as substance use disorder, risk-appropriate care, and contraceptive access, while elevating national dialogue through publications and presentations. She holds a master's degree in public health from George Washington University and is a certified Project Management Professional.
  

Region 7 Panel Discussion

• Ebonie Bailey, CD (DONA), Founder and Executive Director, The Birthwork Foundation
  Ebonie Bailey is a DONA-certified birth and postpartum doula and Certified Lactation Specialist. She is the owner of Naturally Ebonie Doula Services, established in 2015, after experiencing the transformative support of a doula during the birth of her third child. A mother of five, she has supported countless families through pregnancy, labor and postpartum, guided by her belief that birth work is soul work. She is the co-founder and Executive Director of The Birthwork Foundation, where she works to expand access to holistic, culturally centered birth care and diversify the doula workforce. Bailey also mentors doulas nationwide and advocates for equitable, compassionate health care for underserved communities.
• Catherine Friends, M.S.N., FNP-C, The SHINE With Joy Foundation
  Catherine Friends is the Director of Maternal Health with the Shine With Joy (SWJ) Foundation, where she promotes community partnerships in maternal care, STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), doula care and storytelling to help optimize resources to improve black maternal health equity. SWJ is focused on optimizing maternal resources for mothers/families and local areas while highlighting future maternal health game changers with annual grants/scholarships. Friends is a board-certified nurse practitioner on staff with Saint Luke's Physician Group specializing in general cardiology and cardio/ob. Friends completed her undergraduate degrees in psychology and nursing at the University of Missouri-Columbia and earned a graduate degree from the University of Maryville- Saint Louis. She has more than 20 years of health care advocacy experience, including in inpatient, clinical, public health and mother/baby nursing. She assisted in maternal health research fundraising for notable local/national foundations. She's a retired NFL dancer with the Kansas City Chiefs and current alumni ambassador committed to supporting healthy community engagement and training current/future dance athletes.
  
• Megan Kalata, M.D./M.P.H., OBGYN, Creighton University/CHI Health
  Megan Kalata is a general OBGYN practicing in Omaha, Nebraska. She completed medical school at the University of Colorado, with residency at Creighton University. She has a master's in public health with a concentration in maternal and child health policy from the Colorado School of Public Health. Dr. Kalata has a strong commitment to contributing to the elimination of systemic racism and health disparities by engaging colleagues and community members at various points in their personal journeys to understand and address implicit biases. Dr. Kalata is also passionate about advocacy, specifically how legislative advocacy can influence the social and political determinants of health. She hopes to use her voice to uplift the voices of our community so that all people feel heard, respected and included in the health care system.
• Aviance Webb, B.S., Maternal Child Health Family Support Services Program Manager, City of Kansas City Health Department
  Aviance Webb serves as the Maternal and Child Health Program Manager for Integrated Family Support Services at the Kansas City Health Department. With a decade of experience in public health, she specializes in program transformation, systems and process improvement. Over the past five years, her work has focused on improving maternal and infant health outcomes among underserved populations through strategic program design, diverse partnerships and equitable family support services. Webb is especially passionate about creating sustainable systems that align people, purpose and impact.

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