Advanced Clinical & Business Skills for Lactation Consultants in Private Practice Lecture Pack

Melissa Cole is a board-certified lactation consultant, neonatal oral-motor assessment professional and clinical herbalist in private practice. Melissa is passionate about providing comprehensive, holistic lactation support and improving the level of clinical lactation skills for health professional. She enjoys teaching, researching and writing about wellness and lactation-related topics. Her bachelor’s degree is in maternal/child health and lactation and her master’s degree is in therapeutic herbalism. Before pursuing her current path, Melissa’s background was in education and cultural arts, which has served her well in her work as a lactation consultant and healthcare educator. She loves living, working and playing in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with her 3 children.

Denise Altman is a private practice lactation consultant and owner of All The Best in Columbia, South Carolina. Prior to that, she has worked in a variety of roles in the healthcare system from staff nurse to clinical educator, with experience in Maternal/Child Health since 1992. She has authored numerous articles for parents and healthcare professionals in print, as well as two medical textbooks, and has served on the Editorial Review Board for the Clinical Lactation journal since the first issue in 2010. She has established herself as a business mentor and enjoys coaching other small and microbusiness owners about methods for success. Her website is DeniseAltman.net. On a personal note, Denise is the mother of three children, and has been married since 1994.

Cynthia Good, MS Clinical Psychology, is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, Clinical Counselor, author, consultant, and internationally recognized speaker. She is the Director of LifeCircle Consulting, LLC and is Certified in Acute Traumatic Stress Management. She is based in the Seattle, Washington, USA area, where she formerly served as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Midwifery at Bastyr University where she taught counseling skills and is a therapist at Sandbox Therapy Group where she works with children, adults, and families. Cynthia has a strong interest in the emerging field of lactational psychology. She brings the evidence and insights of psychology and lactation consulting to her presentations, providing information and teaching skills that are essential to understanding and effectively responding to the complex psychosocial realities of families living in diverse contexts. The focus of her presentations includes communication skills and counseling techniques for perinatal care providers; equity, diversity, and inclusion; infant feeding rhetoric; perinatal mental health; perinatal loss, grief, and trauma; ethics; serving as an expert witness in lactation-related court cases; cultural competence and humility; vitamin D; and more.

Kathy Parkes is a registered nurse, IBCLC, and Fellow of the International Lactation Consultant Association (FILCA) with over 30 years of experience in lactation management and education. She has been actively involved with breastfeeding coalitions at the local, state, and international levels. Now a published author, her first book, “Perspectives in Lactation: Is Private Practice for Me?”, sold out the first printing in only 48 hours. Kathy has worked in multiple lactation settings, including the hospital, private practice, education, home health care, and in the US-based Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) program. As a Certified Compassion Fatigue Educator, Kathy heads the Perinatal Loss Program at her hospital, and leads a Griefshare program in the community. Happily married for 39 years, she has 2 daughters, and 3 grandchildren, all breastfed.

Beth is the owner and manager of Mahala Lactation and Perinatal Services and Breastfeeding Center in Northwest NJ. She is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) and a NJ licensed Registered Nurse (RN) with a bachelor of science degree in psychology and reproductive biology from Tulane University and a bachelor of science degree in nursing from The Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. She began her clinical nursing career in pediatric and adolescent medicine at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and now has over 16 years of experience in the areas of reproductive biology, community and mental health, school nursing and maternal/child health.
Beth was a US Peace Corp Volunteer in French-speaking Cameroon, West Africa, where her passion for working with mothers and babies was born. Beth is an accredited La Leche League Leader (since 2006) and has trained as a birth and postpartum doula. She enjoys working with medically diverse mother/infant dyads, training and mentoring lactation consultants and interns. She enjoys writing for breastfeeding publications and speaking professionally, especially internationally, where she has the opportunity to learn about the diversity of breastfeeding experiences and share her knowledge. She also enjoys planning and hosting Mother Blessing ceremonies, an alternative to the traditional "baby shower," where expectant mothers are emotionally supported to explore their instinctive abilities to birth and breastfeed their babies.
Beth is currently attending Georgetown University’s Online Family Nurse Practitioner Program and will graduate in the Spring of 2017. She looks forward to having the privilege of incorporating her lactation expertise with comprehensive primary health care of the whole family.

Melissa Morgan is a lactation consultant operating a robust private practice in Eastern Washington and North Idaho. She has also partnered with a thriving physician's group to provide contractional lactation care and provides lactation services and practitioner education in the public health setting.  She is studying health service administration with an emphasis on finance and has consulted with other IBCLCs in their efforts to establish in-clinic lactation services in the physician office. She and her husband are raising their three children in their self-built home in the foothills of the Rockies where she enjoys her warm/hot glass studio, snowshoeing, and berry picking.

Renee Beebe is a board certified lactation consultant with a busy private practice. She has been working in the field of lactation since the birth of her first child in 1990--as a La Leche League Leader, postpartum doula and IBCLC. Since becoming certified in 1997, Renee has supported moms through home, hospital and clinic visits, drop-in groups in the Seattle area and phone and tele-conferencing consultations internationally. In 2013, she began a contractual relationship with a naturopathic family practice clinic to provide lactation services. Renee is thankful to live in breastfeeding-friendly Seattle, close to her 2 grown daughters.