2023-2024 Executive Team
The Minnesota Coalition for Family Home Visiting elects Executive Committee members to serve two-year terms. The Executive Committee meets on the fourth Thursday of every month.
Kathy Filbert, Coalition Co-Chair, Saint Paul-Ramsey County Public Health
"I'm reminded how I came into this work of Family Home Visiting, over 15 years ago I began my journey into Public Health as a Family Home Visitor in a rural Minnesota county where I learned how to build trusting relationships with families.
Everyday I'm amazed by the work of my Family Home Visitors, I continually seek to understand their needs in serving families while I advocate for them in doing their best work. My hope for being part of the Coalition is to provide insights to the world of Public Health's Home Visiting Programs, and to bring a perspective from both the rural and metro counties on home visiting services and their workforce."
Kathy has been elected Coalition Co-Chair and will also serve as a regional contact.
Molly Kenney, co-chair, at-large community member
Pat Dale, Youable Emotional Health
Pat is currently the CEO at Youable Emotional Health Services. He has been in his current position since 2001 and Headway since 1985. Pat has a BSW from Eau Claire.
Youable is currently operating as a contracted provider of Hennepin County. We are accredited in HFA. We have been doing HFA since Hennepin County began contracting the services. Last fall Headway began preparations to add the Family Spirit home visiting model to specifically work with American Indian families. In addition to home visiting services, Headway provides services across the emotional health spectrum. Headway offers age 0-5 clinical services on an outpatient basis as well as providing therapeutic services to early childhood special education students in the Bloomington school district. In addition, Headway offers Children’s Mental Health Targeted Case Management.
Pat is currently the Chair of the Hennepin County Children’s Mental Health Collaborative and the chair of the Social Connectedness work group of Hennepin County CHIP Initiative.
Pat will co-coordinating and support the Legislative Committee.
Molly Kenney is a licensed clinical social worker with a certificate in early childhood mental health. Molly's entire career has been devoted to supporting the parent child relationship as well as supporting the parent in understanding the unique needs of their child's developmental process.
Molly spent over 19 years working at Greater Minneapolis Crisis Nursery in a variety of roles. Most recently, she supported staff in understanding the meaning of a child's behavior from a trauma informed lens. Currently, Molly is working in a coordinator role at Children's Hospital as well as doing consultation with organizations designed to support the unique needs of the early childhood field.
Molly will serve as a regional contact for the Coalition.
Ronel Robinson, Way to Grow
Ronel has been Program Director with Way to Grow Inc. since 1991. Way to Grow is a holistic program serving families and children prenatal to age eight providing an evidenced informed literacy and health curriculum building on skills for school and life success. She has a BA in Organizational Management and Communications from Concordia University with additional studies at Minnesota State at Mankato in business administration plus early childhood education and maternal and child health.
Ronel manages the Way to Grow Dream Tracks Teen Parent Program serving teens and young moms ages 14- 24. She is a member of the Northside Achievement Zone (Early Childhood Committee), Minneapolis Healthy Start - Community Action Network, Hennepin County Teen Parent Connection, and the Minnesota Coalition of Targeted Home Visiting. She has also worked with the Minnesota Department of Education on the revisions of the Early Childhood Indicators of Progress, the African American Babies Project, and Northside Breastfeeding Initiative and many other community initiatives. Ronel is the current President of the Minnesota Chapter of the National Association of Black Social Workers.
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Ronel will support the Coalition by attending partner meetings.
Nedra Robinson, Simpson Housing Services
Paula Frisk, St. David's Center for Child & Family Development
"I bring almost 25 years of experience working with children and families with a specialty focus on attachment based dyadic parent/child relational work. My areas of interest include trauma-informed maternal, infant and early childhood mental health and early intervention and prevention.
I have in-depth of understanding in practice and administration of two evidence-based home visiting models, Healthy Families and Parent’s as Teachers as well as evidence informed models. I have served over five years on the Metro Alliance for Healthy Families Quality Assurance team and strongly believe in the importance of best practice and advocacy for continued funding of quality home visiting services. I am also very passionate about the importance of reflective practice and reflective supervision/consultation in home visiting."
Paula will support the Coalition's Practice Matters/quality work.
"I want to be part of the effort to mobilize and promote increased access to home visiting services for families in Minnesota. I believe this can be achieved through collaboration across home visiting programs, partners, families, and funders. I would like to be part of the Coalition’s efforts to identify community and family strengths and needs, advocate for ways to meet the needs of communities, and support capacity building of home visiting providers and communities in supporting families with young children.
I hope to support the mission, vision and operations of the Coalition by bringing my knowledge of and experience working with home visiting programs statewide, and by representing a large local public health agency that also partners with non-profit agencies to provide home visiting services. I also have experience in early childhood system building, and see home visiting as an essential component as part of an early childhood system. I hope to contribute my knowledge of state and local early childhood efforts as they relate to home visiting to the Executive Committee."
Meredith will attend the Coalition’s partner meetings and communicate with MDH regional consultants.
Meredith O'Brien, Hennepin County Public Health
"I am the Early Childhood Program Manager at Simpson Housing Services where we support those experiencing homelessness. I fully understand the positive implications of home visiting for at-risk parents with young children. At any given time, we are serving over 200 families with over 500 children. Simpson Housing Services shares the Coalition’s mission and vision to provide targeted home visiting services to those families who are at risk with young children.
As a member, I have been able to experience first-hand the valuable work of the Coalition. I would consider it a privilege to be part of the leadership for the Minnesota Coalition for Targeted Home Visiting to help ensure its continued successful work. I always want to be part of active solutions rather than another obstacle for the families we serve."
Nedra will support the Coalition's Legislative Committee.
Kayla Nelson, Horizon Public Health
Kayla has been a Public Health Nurse for almost 12 years. She spent the first two years of her career working as a Family Health Nurse in Douglas County. She then had an opportunity to serve her home community of Pope County and accepted a position where she spent the next 6 years as Nurse Home Visitor with Supporting Hands Nurse-Family Partnership. Due to a retirement, Kayla had an opportunity to take a Family Health Position with Horizon Public Health out of the Pope County office as a Family Health Nurse. Shortly after, Horizon was awarded an Evidence Based Home Visiting (EBHV) grant to implement Healthy Families America (HFA). It was at that time that Kayla was promoted to EBHV Supervisor, and now supervises Maternal Early Childhood Sustained Home-Visiting (MECSH) along with all of the Family Health programs at HPH.
Kayla is committed to helping families in the community and giving children the best chance possible. She grew up in Starbuck, MN and continues to live in Pope County with her husband and two young children.
Kayla will serve as a regional contact for the Coalition.
“While many things in this world have changed, one thing has not, children need caring, responsive, and nurturing care giving. I am a public health nursing supervisor for Southwest Health & Human Services (SWHHS) serving six counties in the southwest part of the state. I’ve been in public health and family home visiting for over 17 years. I have a passion for supporting families with young children and continue to be committed to this essential work. I sit on the steering committee for Supporting Hands Nurse Family Partnership which provides NFP to 21 counties in the SW/SC part of Minnesota. At SWHHS, I supervise family health programs including our family home visiting program. We recently were trained in and are providing the MECSH program.
In my spare time, I enjoy attending sporting events, time with family and friends, traveling and reading. I look forward to being a part of this coalition and am excited for the future of family home visiting in Minnesota.”
Kristin will serve as a regional contact for the Coalition.
Kristin Deacon, Southwest Health & Human Services
