CEO, National Healthy Start Association
Deborah Frazier has served as the NHSA Chief Executive Officer since 2013. She has a stellar national reputation having spent over 35 years of her public health 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 and former Chief of Staff for the State of Arkansas Dept. of Health. 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 national, state and community-based programs to develop policies strategic plans, needs assessments, program designs and services. Ms. Frazier has a long and very rich history with Healthy Start and NHSA serving as grantee evaluator, technical advisor to projects, Project Director for New Orleans Healthy Start, and past NHSA 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 MCH Partnership Grant.
During her CEO tenure, NHSA has expanded partnerships, policy and advocacy efforts, program and funding portfolios, and expanded fatherhood and men’s health program and added an Annual Summit on Fatherhood and the Health & Wellness of Boys and Men.
Alicia Aroche, MEd
Director of Communications and Leadership Development
Alicia Aroche serves as Director of Communications and Leadership Development for the National Healthy Start Association, where she leads strategic communications that elevate community voice and impact and advances leadership initiatives that support maternal and child health. At NHSA, her work with Healthy Start has supported leadership pathways, learning opportunities, and capacity-building resources for nationwide, multi-site initiatives focused on building policy infrastructure, improving access to food and nutrition, and advancing maternal and child health.
Alicia’s career has spanned higher education, health care, nonprofit, and community collaboratives. She has translated complex public health issues into compelling narratives that elevate the experiences of families and communities, advanced evidence-informed practice through community-based participatory research (CBPR), and supported systems change. Through strategic communications, medical residency training, workforce development, technical assistance, and learning communities, she has helped amplify community voices and build leadership capacity among people with lived experience, public health practitioners, health care professionals, academics, and researchers. Alicia has co-authored peer-reviewed publications on community-university partnerships, regional collaboration, and maternal health including.
Before joining NHSA, Alicia held positions with Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Medicine, Center on Society and Health, and Center for Clinical and Translational Research, as well as Bridging Richmond. She earned a Master of Education from Virginia Commonwealth University with a concentration in Participatory Action Research, a framework that continues to inform her commitment to community-centered leadership, collaboration, and sustainable systems change.
Bea Haskins, MS
Communications Coordinator
Bea Haskins has been NHSA’s Communications Coordinator since 2016. However, her NHSA story goes back to her work with the Senior Management team for one of the original HS grantees in Baltimore and then as one of the incorporating signatures for NHSA. A longtime special events coordinator and nonprofit organizational consultant, Bea joined NHSA as the Operations Manager and Logistics Coordinator for NHSA’s annual conferences from 2000-2008, for 12 regional conferences held in 2004 and 2006 management of daily operations and grant writing. Bea also launched and edited NHSA’s newsletter, “Getting Off to A Healthy Start”– a job she continues! In addition, Bea 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
Kenneth Scarborough is nationally recognized for his expertise in fatherhood and men’s issues. He leads NHSA’s Where Dads Matter Initiative (DMI), collaborating with Healthy Start fatherhood practitioners nationwide to develop educational content for webinars, newsletters, and NHSA’s signature Summit on Fatherhood and the Health and Wellness of Boys and Men. Ken is also Principal Consultant at Legacy Enterprise Group, LLC, where he helps organizations, groups, and individuals “Sustain Their Future on Purpose.” With more than 20 years of experience in program leadership, consulting, and mission work, he has held leadership roles in nonprofit and community-based organizations.
Previously, Ken served as Chief Program Officer and Director of Ready4Work at Operation New Hope in Jacksonville, Florida, overseeing comprehensive reentry services for more than 1,500 returning citizens annually and leading a team of 31 staff. He has also served as a missionary with Servants of Christ International and as Chair of the Northeast Florida Healthy Start Coalition.
Senior Program and Quality Improvement Manager
Miriam Campbell has worked with various capacities with NHSA, and currently provides expertise in developing data products and offering policy support for the Maternal Child Health Policy Innovation Program (MCH PIP). Previously, she provided strategic management and quality improvement oversight for the Total Family Care pilot project, implemented in partnership with a managed care organization (MCO) in the Mississippi Delta. It was designed to improve maternal, infant, and father health outcomes by addressing social and environmental factors that influence health, including poverty, transportation, and access to essential services. She developed and implemented quality improvement frameworks, standardized workflows, performance monitoring systems, and evidence-informed strategies to improve care coordination, strengthen program implementation, and improve outcomes. She also led workforce development efforts by designing staff training, competency-based learning opportunities, and standardized tools to improve service delivery. Additionally, she managed the Supporting Healthy Start Performance Project (SHSPP), where she provided tailored technical assistance and capacity-building support to federally-funded Healthy Start programs.
Prior to NHSA, she worked with a national MCO, where she oversaw high-risk maternity and child health programs across 31 counties in North Carolina Health departments. She cultivated strategic partnerships, implemented data-driven action plans, developed policies, workflows, and served as a subject matter expert on breastfeeding. She also served as Grants and Performance Manager at Healthy Start New Orleans. Miriam holds a doctorate in public health with a concentration in Advanced Practice Leadership, as well as a graduate certificate in epidemiology. Her research focused on breastfeeding among mothers undergoing medication for opioid use disorder.
Saanie Sulley MD, PhD, MBA
Clinical, Analytics, and Evaluation Manager
Saanie Sulley serves as NHSA’s clinical, analytics, and evaluation expert. He 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