Speaker(s)
Tassia Drame, MPH
Speaker(s) Bio
Tassia C. Drame, MPH (she/her) is a labor doula and
public health professional. She earned her Master of Public Health from Rollins
School of Public Health at Emory University where she studied Global
Environmental Health and received a Certificate in Maternal and Child Health.
She is a former CDC/CSTE Applied Epidemiology
Fellow with the Louisiana Department of Health. She was jointly appointed with
the Infectious Disease Epidemiology segment and Bureau of Family Health. Her
priority areas included COVID-19 in Maternal and Child Health populations,
along with MCH Emergency Preparedness Response. She has also led impactful work
through public health consulting.
Tassia has years of experience working with
underserved communities including postpartum women in rural Georgia,
individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities, and children
disproportionately exposed to toxins.
Additionally, Tassia is the founder of être
birth & wellness care where they specialize in labor doula services. Her
goal is to provide support to birthing women and their families with an
emphasis in health and service.
When Tassia is not doing public health
consulting or birth work, she takes scenic walks with her husband and
3-year-old son and cooks traditional Senegalese cuisine.
Speaker(s)
Kanwal Haq, MS
Speaker(s) Bio
Kanwal Haq, MS is the Program Manager for the NYC
Partnership, leading strategy and programming efforts to improve
care, research, and education. Last year, the NYC Partnership piloted the
HoPE program, which provides full-spectrum, community-based doula care, free-of
charge to any birthing person at Elmhurst Hospital and Queens Hospital, and
this year is adapting the program to better serve community members
experiencing housing insecurity/ homelessness and/or justice-involvement/
incarceration. Kanwal is a medical anthropologist focused on women's health and
education, across the lifespan. She is especially passionate about women’s
health literacy which led her to co-author her first book "Taking Care of You: The Empowered Woman's Guide to Better
Health." (Mayo Clinic Press 2022, learn more
at www.tiny.cc/bookit) Kanwal
is originally from Poplar Bluff, Missouri and her rural roots cultivated her
desire to make health education and health care accessible for everyone.
Speaker(s)
Pia Alexander, LMFT
Speaker(s) Bio
Pia Alexander, LMFT is a NYS Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist
and the Associate Clinical Director at North Brooklyn Marriage & Family Therapy in
Williamsburg, Brooklyn. She has presented at numerous academic and professional
conferences including Critical Race Studies in Education (CRSEA) at the University of
Southern California, The Groves Conference on Marriage and Family, and the National
Council on Family Relations (NCFR). Pia has worked as an adjunct instructor at Long
Island University (LIU) Brooklyn, Hofstra University, and Syracuse University in their
respective Marriage & Family Therapy (MFT) programs. She was recently hired as full-time Core Faculty in the Couple & Family Therapy Program at Antioch University New
England, where she serves as the Faculty Co-Chair of the university's Anti-Racism Task
Force (ARTF). Pia was a distinguished SAMHSA Minority Fellowship (MFP) recipient
from the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) and she is
currently serving as a mentor for the fourth year in the fellowship. Prior to becoming a
therapist, Pia started her professional career with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism &
Metropolitan Studies from New York University, leading to a successful career in New
York and Los Angeles as an executive producer in television for over a decade prior to
becoming a therapist and researcher. Her passion for helping families in her community
to thrive and to build closer bonds with each other inspired her career change in 2008.
Pia is originally from Southeast Queens, NY, and is deeply involved in community work
throughout New York City and Long Island, NY as a community-wellness educator and
clinical justice advocate. Pia provided volunteer support as a licensed mental health
professional for New York State during the COVID 19 pandemic, by facilitating
support groups for both NYC residents and essential workers as a volunteer facilitator in
New York’s pilot Coping Circles program. Pia is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha
Sorority Incorporated and the Links Incorporated, where she serves as a member
of the Eastern Area Wellness, Mind, Body & Spirit Committee and was a 2020-2022 Scott
Hawkins Leadership Fellow. Pia also holds a leadership role in the Women’s Diversity
Network (WDN) in Long Island and serves as a committee chair for the Health Equity
Task Force. Her work as a task force chair led to her recent appointment to the New York
State Legislature’s Suffolk County Maternal Mortality & Morbidity Task Force where she
is serving for a second year. She is a mother, an activist-scholar and mentor who is
dedicated to supporting others in their personal and professional journeys!
Course Description
In part 2 of this 3-part series, learn how midwives and
doulas work together to aid in birth and prenatal care. Midwives provide
holistic care, and their scope of practice includes primary, sexual, and
reproductive care with a special focus on pregnancy, childbirth, and
gynecologic, and reproductive health. Doulas provide continuous physical,
emotional, and informational support to birthing people before, during, and
during the postpartum period. Together, doulas and midwives are fighting to
create spaces for birthing people to ensure equitable and safe experiences.
Join us as we host a panel discussion for midwives and
doulas to discuss their different scopes of practice and how they work together
as a birth team