May 20, 2025 | 12:00 PM ET | Virtual
Topic: The Massachusetts Maternal Health Policy Landscape: Progress in Challenging Times
Speakers:
Emily Anesta, Co-Founder and President, Bay State Birth Coalition
Jessie Colbert, Founder and Executive Director, Mass. PPD Fund
A Learning Community Event for Integrated Behavioral Health Professionals
Our monthly Speaker Series is designed to provide peer support, shared learning, and guidance for direct care providers (behavioral health, medical, and other human service practitioners), students (emerging workforce), and public health professionals. Grand rounds for integrated behavioral health care, community health, and human services. This webinar series is part of our commitment to fostering a strong community of integrated behavioral health professionals.
About Jessie Colbert
Jessie Colbert is the Founder and Executive Director of the Mass. PPD Fund, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit focused on improving communities’ capacity to address Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders (PMADs) through education, training, and advocacy. Previously, Jessie worked in nonprofit fundraising and as the first Director of the Ellen Story Special Legislative Commission on Postpartum Depression, now a national model. After hearing for years about the lack of investment in Perinatal Mental Health, she was inspired to put her policy and fundraising experience together to help fill that gap. Although she didn’t go through PMADs herself, she brings lived experience with other mental health challenges and as a mom to her work.
Under Jessie’s leadership, the Fund was selected as the backbone organization for Postpartum Support International’s 2022 Mind the Gap Massachusetts State Policy Series. This effort evolved into an active coalition that was successful in passing the Moms Matter Act – legislation investing in community-based organizations supporting perinatal mental health, particularly in marginalized communities – as part of the state’s 2024 omnibus maternal health law. The Massachusetts Mind the Gap Coalition is now a standing coalition working on a platform of policy improvements supporting the mental health and well-being of new parents in the Commonwealth.
About Emily Anesta, MS
Emily Anesta is a passionate advocate for maternal health and justice, especially access to midwifery care. She co-founded Bay State Birth Coalition in 2016 and leads statewide advocacy and organizing for policies to expand access to midwives and community birth options such as birth centers and home births. Bay State Birth Coalition’s model of advocacy is based on grassroots organizing and coalition-building, convening over two dozen organizations and engaging thousands of birthing people, families, and supporters across the state to share the message: Midwives Save Lives.
Emily also proudly serves as board president of Birth Future Foundation (BFF), a national midwifery grantmaking organization. Previously, Emily served as a founding steering committee member of Birth Equity and Justice Massachusetts (BEJMA) and as president of the Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery. Emily was an Executive Producer of the 2016 documentary about home births, “Why Not Home.”
Prior to becoming a birth justice advocate, Emily led technology research and development projects for over a decade at MIT and holds an MS and BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Emily birthed her two children at home, attended by midwives, and was herself born at home with a midwife. These experiences with midwifery care inspired her to join the movement to improve maternal care.