CL22 - LS-A2, Intermediate-Level: From Doulas To DC:0– 5: Creating Equitable Mental Health Policy Requires New Relationships

Kim Gilsdorf is a Program Officer at Perigee Fund, a national philanthropy focused on mental health and family supports for wellbeing. She leads Perigee’s work to diversify, expand, and strengthen the workforce supporting families during pregnancy, infancy, and toddlerhood. Perigee’s commitment to workforce development is shaped by our Equity North Star, so Kim guides investments that prioritize support for diverse leaders, advance culturally specific approaches to mental health and wellbeing, and include integration of mental health approaches into a wide range of professions. Kim collaborates with Perigee grantees and partners across Washington State to build family and provider voice and power to influence and change systems. As part of that work, she has helped grow Washington’s State Prenatal – 5 Relational Health policy workgroup, and worked closely with systems and nonprofit leaders to create and advance policies that support a wide range of formal and informal mental health services for families Prenatal - 5. Prior to her role at Perigee, Kim worked as a strategy consultant at FSG and Ernst & Young, helping nonprofit, philanthropy, and business clients pursue their visions for change. She has two young children. Raising them with her partner and their village of family, friends, and neighbors in the Seattle area is her greatest joy.

Christine came into the mental health field eager to work with the youngest members of our communities, children. She quickly discovered the critical importance of working with caregivers which began her passion for relationship-based work with children and those who care for them. Throughout her time in the field, she has been afforded the opportunity to practice within a variety of settings and across the continuum of care. Throughout these roles, she has experienced the immense benefit of having a holding space to reflect on the work and opportunities to build strong relationships with others in the field. Currently, Christine holds the role of Infant-Early Childhood Mental Health Program Manager with the Washington State Health Care Authority, the state’s Medicaid agency. In this role, she brings an early relational lens to Medicaid policies and programs for children birth through five and their caregivers.

Kiki Fabian is a data and policy analyst at the Washington State Medicaid and Behavioral Health Services Agency. She has significant professional experience in the early childhood field, and specializes in partnering with states and Tribes to support early childhood systems through the development of strategic, implementation, and evaluation plans. Kiki brings a lens of anti-oppression design and community-based participatory research, with a focus on sustainability, capacity building, and cross-system alignment. Kiki's current work for the Washington state's Medicaid and Behavioral Health Services agency includes supporting the implementation of infant-early childhood mental health programs and policies, including statewide roll-out of the DC:0-5.