Breastfeeding Advocacy Online Course(s) & Continuing Education

Paulina is the mother of three multicultural Latino children and Project Director for Lifespan Local. Paulina earned her BS in Psychology from the Pennsylvania State University, a MS in Organizational leadership from the University of Denver and is completing her PhD in Health and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Colorado - Denver. Paulina has over 18 years of experience working with families with young children. As a Maternal Child Health specialist for Jefferson County Public Health, she developed a NICU follow-up home visitation program and the pediatric emergency preparedness plan, co-founded and coordinated the Conectando Network (former Adelante Jeffco), established community navigation and lactation support groups focused on the Latino Spanish speaking community, and lead other initiatives to support leadership and partnerships among communities and organizations. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she managed the new program Whole Community Inclusion to ensure the pandemic response and recovery implementation included health equity practices that recognize the needs and the strengths of priority populations in the county. Her areas of current work include promoting perinatal and infant mental health along the continuum of care; building community capacity to navigate health and education systems; facilitating organizational change to embrace linguistic and culturally responsive practices; and establishing community-placed participatory programs to strengthen communities. She likes to be with people, learn from and with others, and connect passions for meaningful work.

Dr. Kendall-Tackett is a health psychologist and International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, and the Owner and Editor-in-Chief of Praeclarus Press, a small press specializing in women's health. Dr. Kendall-Tackett is Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Psychological Trauma and was Founding Editor-in-Chief of Clinical Lactation, a position she held for 11 years. She is Fellow of the American Psychological Association in Health and Trauma Psychology, Past President of the APA Division of Trauma Psychology, and a member of APA’s Publications and Communications Board.

Paulina is the mother of three multicultural Latino children and Project Director for Lifespan Local. Paulina earned her BS in Psychology from the Pennsylvania State University, a MS in Organizational leadership from the University of Denver and is completing her PhD in Health and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Colorado - Denver. Paulina has over 18 years of experience working with families with young children. As a Maternal Child Health specialist for Jefferson County Public Health, she developed a NICU follow-up home visitation program and the pediatric emergency preparedness plan, co-founded and coordinated the Conectando Network (former Adelante Jeffco), established community navigation and lactation support groups focused on the Latino Spanish speaking community, and lead other initiatives to support leadership and partnerships among communities and organizations. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she managed the new program Whole Community Inclusion to ensure the pandemic response and recovery implementation included health equity practices that recognize the needs and the strengths of priority populations in the county. Her areas of current work include promoting perinatal and infant mental health along the continuum of care; building community capacity to navigate health and education systems; facilitating organizational change to embrace linguistic and culturally responsive practices; and establishing community-placed participatory programs to strengthen communities. She likes to be with people, learn from and with others, and connect passions for meaningful work.

TaNefer is an IBCLC, Maternal Health Strategist and Healer with over 15 years of experience in supporting families through birth, breastfeeding and postpartum. She has a background in psychology and Health education with an emphasis in community health and early career experience in counseling, social services and family advocacy. She brings a wealth of knowledge and experience as she helps her clients identify their challenges and lovingly guides them through a plan to overcome them. She has the ability to work with diverse populations and tailors support to fit the needs of each unique person or group. She educates parents, families and professionals on lactation, breastfeeding and maternal healing. She is also a researcher, serving as a Community Advisory Board member to the UCSF Preterm birth initiative and is also the Community Researcher and Relations consultant to the SACRED Birth Study. She has designed, implemented and evaluated programs in maternal equity and lactation and is the creator of the "Teach me how to breastfeed" song and viral music video. TaNefer Lumukanda Camara is also a Co-founder B.L.A.C.K Course.

Dipti Shah is a Mother Support Group Leader - Lactation Counsellor since 1998 & Lactation Consultant since 2010. She was trained by BPNI Maharashtra Faculty & has been providing Lactation Counselling services in multiple Institutional Hospitals & small maternity homes in Mumbai for over 2 decades. She has wide experience in community advocacy & Individual Counselling in indoor, OPD, home and online settings. She is senior trainer for BPNI Maharashtra & participated as faculty in over 100 workshops in Seven States of India & for 5 batches of ’96 hrs of Lactation Specific Education’ for IBLCE preparation (2010-2021). She mentored many Lactation counsellors and consultants. She is a BFHI Assessor since 2001 & has trained two groups of ‘Traditional Massage Women’ in basics of infant feeding and childcare. She has extensively contributed to multiple training modules, presentations & videos for BPNI Maharashtra & Maharashtra Government & UNICEF. She is also office coordinator of BPNI Maharashtra since 2004. She participated in Expanded Global Breastfeeding Partners Meeting (GBPM) of WABA at Penang, Malaysia in 2010. She was felicitated with ‘Dr N.B. Kumta Award’ in 2016. She exclusively breastfed her son for 6 months and continued well into 2nd year.

Ruth Patterson is Cloud Nine's P I O N E E R & most sought Lactation Specialist with 32 years of rich experience. Ruth is currently practicing at Jayanagar C9, Bangalore-India and a visiting Lactation Consultant with 8 other Cloud Nine branches locally, while als heading the 22 Pan India Cloud Nine Hospitals as the Manager Lactation. Ruth's primary role is to ensure C9 nurses complete level 1 and level 2 LSTP course (Lactation Skilled Training Program). Ruth is acclaimed for the use of Dynamic Taping (only available at Jayanagar C9) that arrests/prevents breast surgery/abscess. This Dynamic Taping practice, alongside, a Gynecologist, Pediatrician and Physiotherapist at Cloud Nine, is now under patent stage.

Ruth's 30+ years of rich experience includes maternity, allied health and nursing care, both in rural and urban sector in India & Abroad. With Exclusive 17 years of experience in Lactation services, Ruth has acquired immense practical knowledge in the last decade to identify most critical disorders of mother and babies during breastfeeding stage. Ruth is acclaimed to have expertise in a lesser-known art of re-lactation and induced lactation.

Ruth is a well sought out person for patient hearing and provides her expert comments in News columns/Media and also delivers guest lectures globally.

Evelyne Ruf is a family physician from France, and an International Board Lactation Consultant (since 1993). More than 25 years ago, she shifted to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), working for the Ministry of Health, in Sharjah MCH Center. She opened there the first Lactation Clinic in the UAE, with the support of volunteers from Breastfeeding Friends (BFF), which she had co-founded. Five years ago, the Lactation Clinic has been shifted to the Family Health Promotion Center, where it continues to offer, to a very cosmopolitan population, skilled lactation support as well as assessment and release of tethered oral tissues.

A member of the National Breastfeeding Committee, Evelyne has been involved in the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative as a lecturer, trainer, adviser and assessor. Her workplace became the first Baby-Friendly Health Center in the UAE and received the IBCLC Care Award (community category) in 2015.

She has also been actively involved in the Sharjah Baby-Friendly Emirate Campaign, a multi-sectorial initiative launched in 2012, and presented its achievements during Gold Lactation 4 years ago.

With her husband of 34 years, she is the proud and grateful mother of 5 grown-up breastfed children and the grandmother of 4 breastfed little ones.

Professor Lisa Amir is a general practitioner and has been an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant since 1989. She is the author of over 120 peer-reviewed articles on breastfeeding. She works in breastfeeding medicine at The Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. She is a Principal Research Fellow at Judith Lumley Centre, La Trobe University and is the Editor-in-Chief of the open access journal, International Breastfeeding Journal.