Ryan Pricco coordinates all advocacy efforts for Child Care Aware of Washington and is an effective voice in Olympia and Washington D.C. for children, families and caregivers. When the Legislature is not in session Ryan focuses on grassroots mobilization, system messaging, representing us at key meetings with state-level partners, policy development and implementation, constituent engagement, and strategic relationships. Ryan holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Washington.

Shayna Raphael lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and they have had three beautiful daughters. In 2015, their almost 11-month old daughter Claire, was put in an unsafe sleep environment for a nap at her in-home child care. Claire never woke up. Thrust into the world of child loss, infant safety, and safe sleep, she and her husband founded the Claire Bear Foundation (www.theclairebearfoundation.org). Within that organization, they are able to provide safe sleep spaces for families, engage in advocacy around safe infant sleep, increase training and awareness for medical personnel, and are honored to be a Cribs for Kids Partner.  Outside of the non-profit, Shayna and Justin have traveled to WA DC with Child Care Aware of America to speak to lawmakers about the importance of ensuring all families have access to high quality, affordable, and safe child care. Shayna sits on ASTM committees related to infant sleep products to help increase safety stand and is in the process of advocating for legislation around child care negligence in her state of Washington and is on the AAP’s National Collaborative for Safe Infant Sleep. With social media having such a large impact on parenting, Shayna shares videos with evidenced based safety practices surrounding sleep safety across Tiktok, Instagram, and Facebook. Shayna is passionate about infant safety and being able to connect with all families from all different parenting styles and communities.

Tim Carson worked in the Westmoreland County Sheriff’s Office from 2000-2011 as the Director of Community Affairs and Grant Coordinator.  He served as Chief Deputy in the Register of Wills Office from 2011-2012.

Since 2022 Coroner Carson has become the Pennsylvania Director for The Missing In American Project which ensures that all unclaimed Veterans are Given a Full Military Funeral after The Operation Dignity project in 2022 that gave 15 Westmoreland County Veterans that had gone unclaimed a full Military Funeral, and is also in the process of constructing a Mausoleum for the other unclaimed bodies dating back 40 years.

In September of this year Carson received the CSAY Changemaker Award for 2023 because of his involvement in helping with Drug Abuse amongst our children.

Tim is a 1989 graduate of Southmoreland High School and 1993 graduate of Waynesburg College. He resides in Mt.Pleasant and has three daughters and two sons.

Call 2-1-1 for Social Services. Help Starts Here.

Brian Maloney is the Director of Operations at Plum EMS.  Plum EMS is a non-profit EMS agency located outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  The organization strives to achieve its motto on a daily basis to be “In Partnership with the Community” and developed a Child Safety Program about 6 years ago.  This program consists of providing car seat safety checks, distributing free car seats and cribs to families in need, providing safe sleep education, conducting Child & Infant CPR training, and providing presentations on injury prevention.  We are extremely proud that last year we conducted 75 car seat safety checks, gave away 38 free car seats, and 8 free cribs to families.

After serving for over 25 years in the law enforcement profession, Lillie Leonardi retired to pursue her lifelong passion for writing. She is a twice traditionally published author with Hay House and an independent writer. 

In 2017, Lillie founded Books Bridge Hope, a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization with a mission to provide educational and outreach programs to unsheltered community members and underserved youth populations. 

Rebecca Carlin, MD
Dr. Carlin is currently an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Attending Pediatric Hospitalist at Columbia University Medical Center and New York Presbyterian’s Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital. She attended Weill Cornell Medical College, and completed her residency in Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins. She spent time working in the Pediatric Emergency Department and Inpatient Unit at a community hospital before beginning her academic career as a general outpatient pediatrician at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC. In 2020, Dr. Carlin moved back to her native New York City and transitioned back to inpatient pediatrics. Her research focuses on decreasing disparities in sleep related deaths by educating families and caregivers about safe sleep and breastfeeding. She has a particular interest in how parents’ social networks and norms influence drive their infant care practices. She joined the American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in 2020 and is an author on their 2022 Policy Statement to Reduce Infant Deaths in the Sleep Environment.

Jeffrey D. Colvin, MD, JD, FAAP
Dr. Colvin is the Director of Research for General Academic Pediatrics at Children’s Mercy Kansas City. His research focuses on the intersection of the social determinants of health, child health (especially in children with medical complexity), and policy or interventions to address unmet social needs in the health care setting. His research is funded by the National Institutes of Health and has been published in Health Affairs, Pediatrics, and JAMA Pediatrics. He is frequently invited to speak about innovative programs that address the social determinants of health in the health care setting. He co-founded Children’s Mercy’s Center for Family and Community Connections and the KLS Legal Services Clinic at Children’s Mercy. In addition, he is a member of the Task Force on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He received his undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University, his medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia, and his law degree from Columbia University. He completed his pediatric training at the combined program of Boston Children’s Hospital (Harvard University) and Boston Medical Center (Boston University). He continues to care for pediatric patients in the Children’s Mercy primary care clinic, the largest safety net primary care clinic in the Kansas City region.

Susan Hwang, MD MPH PhD
Susan Hwang, MD MPH PhD is a neonatologist, health services researcher, and perinatal quality improvement expert at Children’s Hospital Colorado and the University of Colorado School of Medicine.  She leads the Colorado Hospitals Substance Exposed Newborn Quality Improvement Collaborative (CHoSEN QIC) and the Data-driven Engagement of Families to Improve the NICU Experience (DEEFINE) QIC.  She previously led the Massachusetts Hospitals Safe Infant Sleep Quality Improvement Collaborative.  Dr. Hwang received her medical degree from SUNY Downstate, MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health, and PhD from the University of Colorado Graduate School.  She completed her pediatric residency and chief residency at New York University and her neonatal fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Hwang is an NIH-funded investigator whose research interest is in the transition of high-risk infants from hospital to home, with particular focus on safe infant sleep practices to reduce sudden unexpected infant death.

Lorena Kaplan leads the activities of the Safe to Sleep® campaign, a public education campaign of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. In collaboration with other agencies, Lorena coordinates the federal effort to help reduce sleep-related Sudden Unexpected Infant Deaths across the United States. In her role, Lorena builds strategic national and community-based partnerships, conducts tailored outreach projects, and coordinates multidisciplinary injury prevention activities to promote the campaign’s objectives across the country. Lorena’s professional experience includes the direction of hospital-based and community-centered health promotion, education and injury prevention services, coordination of multidisciplinary research and health improvement projects in various Latin American countries and in the U.S., and development of culturally-sensitive health education curricula and services. Lorena earned a Bachelor of Science from the University of Washington, a Master of Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and she is a Master Certified Health Education Specialist.

Jennifer Gingrasfield is a pediatric nurse practitioner in the Sleep Center at Boston Children’s Hospital. Practicing for over 15 years, Jennifer works with families to address sleep challenges of all kinds ranging from sleep apnea to pediatric insomnia. Jennifer specializes in behaviorally based insomnias and loves working collaboratively with families of infants, toddlers and preschoolers to provide individualized care to resolve sleep issues, making for well-rested child and (most importantly) a well-rested family. Jennifer founded and leads the Infant Safe Sleep Subject Matter Expert (SME) Committee at Boston Children’s Hospital, with the goal to establish consistent practice and promotion of infant safe sleep across the care continuum. Boston Children’s Hospital was granted Silver Level National Safe Sleep Hospital certification by Cribs for Kids upon their initial application in May 2022! The Boston Children’s Hospital Safe Sleep SME Committee has over 100 multidisciplinary members promoting safe sleep, conducting audits, and sharing their knowledge of SUID with staff and caregivers.  Jennifer has presented nationally and internationally on pediatric sleep and infant safe sleep. She is a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, International Pediatric Sleep Association, and the International Society for the Study and Prevention of Perinatal and Infant Death amongst other professional groups. Jennifer is passionate about educating families and medical staff about infant safe sleep.

Sara Drumm has been a registered nurse for 40 years. Originally from Australia, Sara has been a bedside nurse in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Boston Children’s hospital since relocating to the US in 1991.   Sara’s passion for safe sleep began when she became involved with the Neonatal Quality Improvement Collaborative of Massachusetts; NICU Safe Sleep Initiative in 2016. Recognizing that there was much room for improvement, the collaborative sought to increase the percentage of safe sleep eligible infants engaging in safe sleep whilst in the NICU and at discharge through staff and parent education. The first two years of this project, formally launched in July 2015, saw an increase in safe sleep compliance for eligible infants in Level III units increase to 81% from 47.7%   Through our participation in this collaboration, Boston Children’s safe sleep efforts expanded beyond the NICU to inpatient units throughout the institution with the formation of our Safe Sleep Subject Matter Expert Committee. Currently co-chair of this committee, Sara was a lead in our application for Safe Sleep Certification through the Cribs for Kids organization. We were honored to receive Silver Certification in May of 2022, and are currently working towards advancing our certification to Gold status. Sara’s commitment to this meaningful work has brought a new sense of joy and fulfillment to her role as a nurse in the NICU. Being a part of such an impactful initiative and witnessing the positive results of our interventions is truly gratifying.

Roberta Hawthorne is a public health worker in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Her career path, while circuitous, has centered on the theme of equitable access to information and education across communities. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Spanish and International Studies from Elon University, along with a certificate in Interpreting in Health & Human Services from Forsyth Technical Community College. Roberta started her professional life working in adult literacy, and from there she moved into Spanish-English medical interpreting. Armed with experience in adult education and the healthcare system, Roberta ultimately found herself working as a Public Health Educator with the Forsyth County Department of Public Health in Winston-Salem, NC. There, she had opportunities to learn in-depth about maternal and child health, infant mortality reduction, and injury prevention. In her role as coordinator of the Forsyth County Infant Mortality Reduction Coalition, Roberta highlighted safe sleep in a new way by utilizing social media and local partnerships to put Safe Sleep Sasha and Safe Sleep Sammi front and center. Roberta now works as the Health Education Manager and Public Information Officer for the Rockingham County Division of Public Health in Wentworth, NC. In this role, she oversees the division’s various health education services, including programs focusing on infant safe sleep, smoking cessation, diabetes prevention, and more. She also provides accurate and timely health information to the public through traditional and non-traditional outlets to keep the community apprised of current trends, risks, and opportunities for their health and wellness.

Dr. Samuel Hanke is a pediatric cardiologist and an associate professor in clinical pediatrics in the Heart Institute at Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center. He received his medical degree from the University of Louisville and completed his pediatric residency, chief residency and cardiology fellowship at Cincinnati Children’s. He currently provides medical care to fragile infants and children with congenital and acquired heart disease in both acute care and outpatient environments. He has completed additional training in quality improvement science and serves as the Chief Patient Experience Officer at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

When not providing pediatric cardiac care, Dr. Hanke serves as president of Charlie’s Kids Foundation. An organization he and his wife founded after the untimely loss of their first son Charlie in 2010 to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) and an unsafe sleep environment. His organization has been committed to educating families about SIDS and Safe Sleep to help prevent other parents from suffering the sudden and unthinkable loss of an infant.

Amanda Simons is the founder of Safe Infant Sleep Evidence Based Support Group.  Created in 2016 to provide education and resources to infant caregivers on safe sleep practices, this Facebook pages boasts over 165,000 members with 24 hour support to its followers and provides on demand access to dozens of downloadable guides to support infant safe sleep.  Amanda also tackles safe sleep by assisting the team at Aaron Matthew SIDS Research Guild with social media and outreach on SIDS research topics.   She also sits on the board of directors of the Safe Infant Sleep non-profit, serving as its secretary.

Katy Bourzikas has always been passionate about sleep and sensitive to lack of sleep. She has worked in pediatrics as a nurse and nurse practitioner for 15 years and thoroughly enjoys working with families with babies and toddlers. Katy and her husband chose to sleep train both of their boys after struggling with sleep deprivation and its effects on their overall well-being and found it life-changing. In 2018, after returning to work full-time after maternity leave with her second baby, Katy wanted to work with new families navigating sleep and feeding challenges. She came across a consulting opportunity where she worked as an expert advisor on an app to answer parenting questions. The majority of the questions were related to sleep.

Katy wanted to expand her ability to support families and provide more comprehensive support to families concerning sleep and feeding, as they are tied so closely together, which led her to become a certified sleep coach and certified breastfeeding counselor. After finishing those certifications, Katy started Well Rested Wee Ones in the fall of 2019. She combined her sleep, infant feeding, and general pediatrics expertise to support families with sleep coaching from newborn to age 4. What started as a local business providing sleep consulting services to families in Kansas City quickly turned into a company recognized worldwide thanks to social media. Katy works with families to provide 1:1 coaching, support, and online sleep classes.