CEO, National Healthy Start Association
Deborah Frazier currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer for the National Healthy Start Association (NHSA). Ms. Frazier has a stellar national reputation having spent 30 years of her professional career in maternal and child health. She is a past member of the HHS Secretary’s Committee on Infant Mortality (SACIM), and the former Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Health for the State of Arkansas. Ms. Frazier has a long and very rich history with Healthy Start and the Association serving as grantee evaluator, technical advisor to projects, Project Director for New Orleans Healthy Start, founding member of the Association and past board member. In her role as Co-Chair of the Association’s Development Committee, she was responsible for securing funding critical to the growth and expansion of the organization – establishing regional conferences, the Healthy Start Leadership Institute and the Partnership Grant with AMCHP and CityMatCH. Ms. Frazier has lent her expertise and knowledge as a consultant to numerous national organizations including The American Academy of Obstetricians and Gynecologists developing and implementing their National Fetal and Infant Mortality Review Program (NFIMR), the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) to evaluate community-based programs and to the National School Health Workgroup to develop national standards and policies for school health programs. She has provided consultation to community-based programs across the country involving the development of strategic plans, needs assessments and designing programs and services for those in need.
Alicia Aroche, MEd
Director of Communications and Strategic Initiatives
Alicia Aroche is the Director of Communications and Strategic Initiatives at the National Healthy Start Association. Alicia currently manages the Maternal Child Health Policy Innovation Program, supporting eight Healthy Start communities with capacity building and policy infrastructure to implement innovative policy initiatives to address social and environmental factors that impact maternal health outcomes. She brings extensive experience in narrative change, community‑based research, and collective impact through previous roles at Initiatives of Change USA, the medical school at Virginia Commonwealth University, VCU Health Centers on Society and Health and Translational Research, and the cradle-to-career collaborative Bridging Richmond. Alicia holds a master’s degree in education focused on Participatory Action Research from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Bea Haskins, MS
Communications Coordinator
Bea Haskins has been NHSA’s Communications Coordinator since 2016. However, her NHSA story goes back before then. A longtime special events coordinator and nonprofit organizational consultant, Bea was a member of the Senior Management Team at the original Healthy Start project in Baltimore. Bea worked with one of the founding board members on incorporation and attainment of NHSA’s 501(c)(3) status in 1999. Bea was the logistics coordinator for NHSA’s annual conferences from 2000-2008, as well as 12 regional conferences held in 2004 and 2006 around the country. As Operations Manager during that time, Bea handled the day-to-day operations of the Association, wrote or assisted on grant proposals and reports and anything that needed her organizational touch. Bea left NHSA in 2008 to pursue other interests, but was persuaded back in 2016 to tackle a project that CEO Deborah Frazier said, “Only you can do!” Deborah convinced Bea to stay on to assume her earlier role as editor of the monthly newsletter, Getting off to a Healthy Start (which Bea named back in 1999) and to handle other communications and tasks. Bea also works with other nonprofits and is the Immediate Past President of the Hanover (PA) Area Historical Society, where she serves on the Marketing and Museum Committees and as webmaster.
Kenneth Scarborough, MDiv, MPH
Fatherhood and Men’s Health Consultant
Kenneth Scarborough is the Principal Consultant of Legacy Enterprise Group, LLC, a business consulting company designed to help businesses, groups, and individuals “Sustain Their Future On Purpose.” In one of his many contracts, he serves as the Fatherhood & Men’s Health Consultant to the National Healthy Start Association, Where Dads Matter Initiative (DMI). He provides technical support to 101 federally-funded Healthy Start Projects advancing best practices and training for fatherhood and male involvement.
Previously, he served as the Chief Program Officer and Director of Ready4Work at Operation New Hope, Inc. in Jacksonville, Florida. He managed a full range of wrap-around life course services for men and women returning to the community from prison and/or jail. He directed a team of 31 serving over 1500 returning citizens annually. He also served as Chair of the Northeast Florida Healthy Start Coalition.
Miriam Campbell, DrPH,MPH
Data Products and Policy Support Consultant
Miriam Campbell has worked with various capacities with the association, and currently provides expertise in developing data products and offering policy support for the Maternal Child Healthy Policy Innovation Program (MCH PIP). Previously she provided strategic management and quality improvement oversight for a pilot project in the Mississippi Delta, aimed at improving health outcomes affected by social factors such as poverty and unemployment. She previously managed the Supporting Healthy Start Performance Project (SHSPP), where she provided tailored technical assistance and capacity-building support to federally-funded Healthy Start programs.
At UnitedHealthcare, she oversaw high-risk maternity and child health programs across 31 counties in North Carolina health departments. In this role, she cultivated strategic partnerships with community leaders and stakeholders, implemented data-driven action plans, and contributed to maternal and child health workgroups. In addition, she developed oversight and delegation policies, workflows, and served as a subject matter expert on breastfeeding. Her experience also includes serving as Grants and Performance Manager for Healthy Start New Orleans.
Miriam holds a doctorate in public health with a focus on advanced practice leadership and a graduate certificate in epidemiology. Her research focused on breastfeeding among mothers undergoing medication for Opioid Use Disorder.
Saanie Sulley MD, PhD, MBA
Analytics and Evaluation Subject Matter Expert/Consultant
Saanie Sulley currently serves as the analytics and evaluation subject matter expert for the Maternal Child Health Policy Program (MCH PIP) Program. Saanie works closely with leadership, partners, advisors and Healthy Start community sites to analyze, develop, monitor, and evaluate the short- and-long term project goals to ensure that all project outputs are evidence and science based, and support and bolster the integrity of community, individual, and program assets. Saanie is a health informatician with experience in medicine, clinical decisions support systems (CDSS), healthcare data integration and predictive modeling. His interests include utilizing healthcare data in improving health outcomes and gaining better understanding of care processes and improving access to maternal pediatric care through quality improvement in these areas. Saanie earned his PhD from Rutgers University in biomedical informatics and an MBA in healthcare management from Columbia Southern University.
Consultants
Fleda Mask Jackson, PhD
Subject Matter Expert (SME)
Fleda Mask Jackson, PhD, is a nationally recognized scholar and educator with expertise in maternal mental health, stress, and depression. She is President of Majaica, LLC, a research firm and think tank, where she leads the Save 100 Babies® initiative. Her work examines how lived experiences during pregnancy and postpartum influence stress, resilience, and maternal and birth outcomes. Dr. Jackson’s research has been foundational to the development of the Jackson, Hogue, Phillips Contextualized Stress Measure, as well as a dissemination and intervention model that has informed research, practice, and policy at local and national levels.
Dr. Jackson is a widely published authority, with numerous peer‑reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and refereed presentations focused on maternal health. In 2021, she served as guest editor for a special issue of the Maternal and Child Health Journal. Her work has been cited and featured in major national media outlets including ProPublica, Vox, CNN, NPR, Vogue, Ebony, and Essence. She has also appeared in several documentary films addressing maternal and infant health, including Crisis in the Crib and Death by Delivery.
Dr. Jackson previously served as Professor of Applied Public Health at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and as a visiting scholar at Spelman College. She has collaborated with leading foundations, academic institutions, and public health organizations, and has served on national advisory committees, including the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Infant Mortality.
Her work has been recognized with numerous awards honoring her lasting contributions to maternal and child health research, advocacy, and practice.
Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health Community Care Initiative (AIM CCI)
Susan Kendig, JD, WHNP-BC, FAANP
Consultant
Susan Kendig, JD, WHNP-BC, FAANP is a Women’s Health Integration Specialist with SSM Health – St. Mary’s Hospital in St. Louis, MO. Prior to joining SSM Health – St. Mary’s she was a teaching professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where she led the Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner program for almost two decades. Sue is a member of the Council on Patient Safety in Women’s Health Care and the Women’s Preventive Services (WPSI) Advisory Panel, a collaborative interdisciplinary effort to develop, review, update and disseminate recommendations for women’s preventive health care services. In Missouri, she has served as an appointee to the Missouri Women’s Health Council, Missouri Patient Safety Commission, and the Missouri Task Force on Prematurity and Infant Mortality. Her primary areas of focus include patient safety, women’s health care, and integration strategies that bring together the full continuum of community and health care services.
Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health Community Care Initiative (AIM CCI)
Deidre McDaniel, PhD, MSW, LCSW
Consultant
Dr. Deidre McDaniel boasts over 20 years of experience in maternal and child health, providing valuable guidance to healthcare systems and both public and private organizations. Her work focuses on the effective implementation and sustainability of programs designed to address adverse outcomes in this vital area. Dr. McDaniel’s research interests are centered on the development of the maternal health workforce. As a licensed and certified social worker, she has dedicated her career to enhancing health outcomes for women and children. In her role as a leader in the field, Dr. McDaniel utilizes her strong communication skills and deep subject matter expertise to partner with organizations to help them turn their visionary ideas into reality, fueling the development of groundbreaking programs that inspire innovation. Her contributions have resulted in meaningful outcomes and positive impacts within the communities she serves.
Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health Community Care Initiative