Meet Our Team

Merry McKenna, RNC-OB, Executive Director, founder and creator of 'Before Baby' Moms Club of Virginia:  Merry resides in rural southwest Virginia and is by trade a registered nurse specialist certified in Inpatient Obstetrics with an undergraduate degree in Business and Marketing. Business and nursing seemed a perfect marriage when she first introduced Baby Basics to Southwest Virginia in 2006. Merry served for as the Director and Coordinator of the Southwest Virginia Perinatal Council for over 15 years, as well as the Perinatal Council State Chair. This position was funded through a Title V Block Grant from the Virginia Department of Health. The Perinatal  Councils were charged with conducting Fetal Infant Mortality Reviews (FIMR) and program implementation to improve birth outcomes. During her tenure, Merry was also a member of the Governors Task Force on Perinatal Depression and was a team member of the Maternal Mortality Review Board. She presented successful programming outcomes for rural application of Baby Basics at the National American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) meeting in New Orleans,  and participated in presenting those outcomes to the Virginia General Assembly Joint Commission on Health. As a result, the Baby Basics Program was later mandated for inclusion in the Virginia Governor's work plan to reduce infant mortality. Merry works in partnership with the March of Dimes Virginia Chapter to implement Moms Clubs across the state and serves on their Maternal Child Health State Committee. As a healthcare consultant, she assists public and private organizations with innovative initiatives to improve pregnancy and birth outcomes. She often shares a favorite quote with our moms which praises motherhood as the preeminent force for change in the world: 
​"The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world."  ~William Ross Wallace​

Liz Marshall, MPH, Program Consultant : Liz is the manager of the Smoking Cessation and Reduction in Pregnancy Treatment (SCRIPT) program at the Society for Public Health Education in Washington, D.C. As a program manager in public health, Liz has experience in planning, implementing, and evaluating grant-funded projects for underserved populations. As a health educator, she has extensive experience facilitating small groups of adult learners. She’s been continuously certified as a childbirth educator (ICEA) and birth doula (DONA) since 1999 and has taught hundreds of pregnant women and their partners in a wide variety of settings, including the prenatal clinics of the Columbus (Ohio) Health Department. In Newport News, Virginia, she led two BB Moms Clubs, including one at a residential drug/alcohol treatment facility for pregnant women known as South-Eastern Family Project. In 2011, she received the Hampton Roads Child Health Advocacy Award from the Consortium for Infant and Child Health (CINCH) for “Grass Roots Advocate.” She has a Master of Public Health degree from The Ohio State University.  

Lisa Bernstein, Advisor and Co-Collaborator:  Lisa was the founding Executive Director of 'The What To Expect Foundation' in 2002. The Foundation was formed with a limited license to build upon the goodwill and value of the bestselling What To Expect™ pregnancy and parenting brand to benefit families in need. Lisa created award-winning cause marketing campaigns in partnership with Nissan, Clorox and GlaxoSmithKline that disseminated important messages to the What To Expect audience. Since 2014, Lisa has led a partnership with the U.S. Department of State Office of Global Women’s Issues to create the $4.8 million Women’s Health Innovation Program (WHIP) to bring prenatal health, literacy and empowerment support to women in Liberia and Bangladesh. She created Big Belly Business Liberia and Babu Barta Bangladesh that provide books, curriculum and training that help 15 partner health and literacy NGOs in each country run Moms Club groups to help women learn to read about pregnancy and meet and help one another. She continues to advise and build this project in partnership with the State Department, WTEF, D.Net and the Open Society in West Africa (OSIWA). In 2017 the program had reached over 100,000 families. Lisa’s success draws upon her years of experience in commercial publishing as a publicist at Henry Holt and Little Brown, Marketing Director at The New Press, and Associate Publisher at Workman where she ran campaigns for the bestselling What To Expect series and the Brain Quest educational program. Her work also includes being an Innovation Fellow at Bank Street College of Education where she launched Simply Put.  

Our Talented 'Before Baby' Moms Club Facilitators:

Abingdon/Bristol:

Lisa Dolinger has been a nurse since 1992. Her career has been centered around caring for mothers and babies. Lisa is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. She is currently a prenatal educator for Johnston Memorial Hospital in Abingdon, VA. Lisa has been an American Heart Association CPR instructor since 2000. As a Moms Club Facilitator, Lisa finds her position to be a complement to her past jobs and enjoys being a part of Moms Club.

Hampton:

Melissa Jones is a registered nurse who spent the first 11 years of her career working as a Labor and Delivery Nurse in Chicago, IL and Newport News, VA. She is currently the Maternal Child Health Nurse for the Hampton Health Department. Melissa loves having the opportunity to talk with pregnant women and their families about their questions and concerns during this life changing time. Melissa lives in Yorktown, VA with her husband.  They have two adult children in college and one child still living at home. 

Lynchburg:

Newport News:

Lameisha Poole is a Program Coordinator in the education department at Planned Parenthood. She received her Bachelors in Public Health Education from North Carolina Central University and is currently working on her MSW at Walden University. Lameisha began working with Moms Clubs as an educator coming to club meetings to help improve awareness about healthy lifestyles and behaviors during and after pregnancy. In 2018 Lameisha accepted a role in group facilitation for Moms Club groups.  Her passion and knowledge about working with pregnant women will will assist in furthering positive outcomes for Moms Club participants. 

-Character is like pregnancy, it will by all means manifest.- 

Roanoke Carilion:

Tara West has over 10 years experience in Perinatal Health. She currently works in Eligibility Assistance at Roanoke Memorial Hospital. She has been the evening Facilitator for the Roanoke site since it started in 2012. Tara loves helping pregnant woman get the care and connections they need to create a happy and healthy family. She lives in Roanoke with her husband and three young children.

William & Mary Healthy Beginnings Project:

 Danielle Dallaire holds a Ph.D in Developmental Psychology from Temple University (Philadelphia, PA) and has been a professor in the psychology department at The College of William & Mary since 2006. She teaches classes at the college in developmental psychology, research methods, and applied developmental psychology. She is the director of the William & Mary Healthy Beginnings project and has been working with several local jail facilities since 2012 to help support prenatal education and service delivery to pregnant women involved in the criminal justice system.

Chesterfield:

Chesterfield Moms Club is currently on hiatus.