Ms. Lazarus is a leading advocate and policy expert on a wide range of children’s issues, having spent more than 40 years working on the front lines for children across the nation. Throughout the years, she has helped secure improved health care, child support, access to information technologies and other vital resources for hundreds of thousands of children and families.

Through her leadership at The Children’s Partnership, digital opportunity for children has become a forefront policy issue in the United States. Ms. Lazarus helped secure first-in-the-nation technology policy gains in California that directed technology resources and training to underserved children and their families.

She also carried out pioneering work on the content dimension of the digital divide, having co-authored the first comprehensive report on Internet content from the standpoint of the needs of underserved Americans. The Children’s Partnership also developed a portal to help low-income and underserved communities use and create online content and produced a widely used Parent’s Guide to the Internet.

In addition, Ms. Lazarus has worked to ensure that every child in America has access to quality health care and has led a number of health reform efforts, including major improvements in the federal Medicaid program for children. While at TCP, she helped create and lead the 100% Campaign, a California-based effort which succeeded in its goal of enabling all children to get health coverage. With Ms. Lazarus’s leadership, The Children’s Partnership also spearheaded the creation and roll-out of Express Lane Eligibility, pioneering a way to use technology to expedite enrollment in public health insurance programs for hundreds of thousands of uninsured children through other public programs in which they are already enrolled. Ms. Lazarus also developed the next frontier in health care for children—the deployment of new technologies such as telehealth to improve children’s health.

Prior to founding The Children’s Partnership, she served as the Children’s Defense Fund’s first national Director of Health, as founding Vice-President for Policy at Children Now, and as a consultant to the Conrad Hilton and Piton Foundations.

Her work at The Children’s Partnership has been recognized for its foresight and leadership, especially in the area of children and digital media. In 1994, she co-authored the first comprehensive report on how digital society impacts children, followed by co-authoring an award-winning, first-of-its-kind parenting resource for the information age. In the following years, she authored multiple publications about children and the digital society and led the development of several digital projects including the first website focused on creating content for low-income Americans. She created and managed communications for many successful advocacy campaigns, securing increased health care and dental care for California’s children, the expansion of next-generation technologies for health care through telehealth, and numerous efforts to close the digital divide.

Ms. Lipper was founding Vice President for Communications at Children Now, a California-based policy organization, where she developed groundbreaking communications strategies for child advocacy. Her work at Children Now included several innovations such as fashioning the marketing elements and releasing, in 1989, the first California Report Card on how the state’s children are faring. This technique spawned a generation of data-based accountability tools supported by communications presentations and messaging in child advocacy. She also developed a model media and communications program for children’s issues, including public opinion research projects, the blending of policy and communications outcomes in strategy development, and the creative development and production of the print, digital, and video advocacy tools for the organization.

Previously, she was Deputy Campaign Manager for a California campaign reform initiative, Proposition 68, and Marketing Director of Hands Across America, a one-of-a-kind mega-event that raised awareness and funds to alleviate hunger and homelessness. She served as Executive Director of The Nation Institute, a New York-based organization that promotes civil liberties and debate on foreign and domestic policy.

Throughout her career, Ms. Lipper has fostered innovative approaches to advocacy. She has been adept at anticipating emerging issues and developing them into advocacy platforms. At The Children’s Partnership, she also honed the structure of the organization to support 22 years of co-leadership and a virtual organization with multiple offices. She has worked to recruit and mentor young advocates interested in pioneering new approaches to advocacy and she has designed organizational structures to support innovation.

In 2017, Laurie Lipper co-founded Kids Impact Initiative, a nonprofit project started to improve the lives of the nation’s 74 million children. After more than three decades as an advocacy organization executive, Ms. Lipper launched Kids Impact to support and strengthen the child advocacy field as a whole. Kids Impact analyzes advocacy trends and lessons across a broad range of issues, advancing new ways to reinforce effective efforts already underway and ratchet up accountability and advocacy for children. Currently, Ms. Lipper serves on the Washington Advisory Council of Common Sense Media. She is an accomplished speaker to schools and parent groups, and to the media. Ms. Lipper received her undergraduate degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara and resides in Washington, D.C.

Mayra E. Alvarez, MHA is President of The Children’s Partnership, a nonprofit advocacy organization working to advance child health equity by ensuring all children have the resources and opportunities they need to grow up healthy and lead productive lives. In 2023, she was nominated by California Governor Gavin Newsom to serve on the Covered California Board of Directors, and in 2019, to serve on the Early Childhood Policy Council. In 2021, she was named by President Biden to the COVID-19 Health Equity Task Force. Since 2017, Ms. Alvarez has served on the California Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission (MHSOAC), nominated by Attorney General Rob Bonta in 2021 and previously by then-Attorney General Xavier Becerra in 2017.

Prior to The Children’s Partnership, Ms. Alvarez completed a several-year set of assignments at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the administration of President Barack Obama. She served as the Director of the State Exchange Group for the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and led a team responsible for supporting states in the establishment of Health Insurance Marketplaces.  Previously, Ms. Alvarez served as the Associate Director for the HHS Office of Minority Health, where she led the coordination of OMH’s work related to the Affordable Care Act, community health workers, and language access. Prior to this role, Ms. Alvarez served as Director of Public Health Policy in the Office of Health Reform at HHS where she had primary oversight responsibility for coordinated and timely implementation of the public health, prevention, and health care workforce policy provisions in the Affordable Care Act.

Before joining the Obama Administration, Ms. Alvarez served as a Legislative Assistant for Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and for then-Congresswoman Hilda L. Solis (D-CA). Ms. Alvarez began her professional career as a David A. Winston Health Policy Fellow in the office of then-Senator Barack Obama (D-IL).

She completed her graduate education at the School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her undergraduate education at the University of California at Berkeley. She is originally from outside San Diego, CA, and is the proud daughter of Mexican immigrants.

Raven Jones is Director, Peer-to-Peer Youth Mental Health, at The Children’s Partnership. Raven is responsible for the execution of a 5-year, $10 million pilot program focused on peer-to-peer youth mental health. Raven will support the pilot sites across California to execute up to 3 school years of peer support programs that are responsive to the mental health needs of youth in those communities and connect to the broader ecosystem of resources and assets in order to inform a set of recommendations for a model statewide.

Raven has spent her career working as a conduit for transformation on behalf of and alongside young people. As a youth development expert she has created safe spaces for individual growth, exploration and access to opportunity for Black and brown youth in systemically underserved communities. Throughout her tenure in community based non-profits, she’s been tapped to open new national offices, expanding programming and building partnerships within local districts and charter networks across Southern California and Northern Texas. Before joining TCP, Raven served as a Director for Organizational Strategy and Equity Programs for one of the largest charter networks in Southern California. Managing annual strategic planning, diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and a wide range of crisis management special projects. Throughout her career, she has pushed the organizations and communities she’s been part of to work towards adopting actionable anti-racist and pro-Black commitments. She believes wholeheartedly in centering inclusion and equity for both the youth we support and the adults within the organization doing the work. Raven holds a Bachelor’s degree in Organizational Studies with a focus in Gender, Race & Class from Pitzer College and a Master’s Degree in Public Policy & Public Administration from Northwestern University.  She proudly identities as a Black queer woman. She and her partner live in Long Beach and share a 6 year old dog named Shadow. She loves interior and floral design, vegan tacos and ice cream!

As Director of Community Engagement and Strategy Support, Liza M. Davis (she/ella) plays a pivotal role in advancing The Children’s Partnership’s mission to promote child health equity through community-driven advocacy and engagement. This leadership position strengthens TCP’s statewide reach by cultivating transformational relationships with local, state and national partners, fostering connections between policymakers and community. Collaborating across advocacy teams, Liza supports advocacy directors and community engagement staff in designing and executing campaigns and programs, developing culturally appropriate resources for families, and supporting community capacity-building to address systemic inequities. Liza leads coalition work, coordinates community engagement strategies, provides training for advocacy staff, and supports effective policy campaign planning and implementation. With a passion for equity and the power of organizing, Liza drives TCP’s vision of meaningful, community-centered policy change.

Before joining TCP in 2002, Liza worked as a public interest attorney for over a decade. She collaborated with and provided direct representation to some of the most marginalized members of our community. Liza dedicated her entire legal career to representing children and families. As an attorney, Liza represented thousands of clients in matters regarding education law, family law, juvenile law, guardianship, public benefits, immigration and other issues vital to improving their quality of life. As a Senior Attorney at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA), Liza represented victims of torture, domestic violence, trafficking, and other serious crimes in both family law and immigration matters. Additionally, Liza advocated for the rights of families impacted by domestic violence via local and state policy advocacy, in deep partnership with key community-led coalitions focused on reimagining the way we serve families in crisis. Notably, Liza helped support and continues to play an active role in the Reimagine Child Safety Coalition, which works to reimagine our family regulation system and the way we address child safety. While at LAFLA, Liza also helped develop and execute Legal Aid’s first all-staff policy initiative: Support Over Separation (SOS) aimed at strategically addressing the intersection between legal aid and the child welfare system, with the goal of ensuring that families received the support and resources they need to stay together. Before LAFLA, Liza worked at Public Counsel, where she provided direct legal services, policy and legislative advocacy on issues related to youth in the juvenile justice system, youth in foster care, and young victims of commercial sexual exploitation. While at Public Counsel, Liza managed various community-based legal clinics, where she helped system-impacted youth enforce their education/special education rights, and worked to decriminalize children with disabilities in schools, group homes and other foster care placements.

Immediately after graduating from Southwestern Law School, Liza helped establish and direct the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) pro-per clinic at the Immigration Center for Women and Children. She joined Southwestern Law School as an Adjunct Professor of Law in 2018 teaching and mentoring students interested in public interest and public sector law. Liza received a BA in Sociology with minors in Applied Psychology and History from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is a proud immigrant from Guatemala raised in Hawthorne, CA. She shares her life with her husband Ryan, their two daughters, and their dog Chase.

Tanysha Delton is Manager, Finance,  at The Children’s Partnership and plays a critical role on the Operations team in budget preparation and management, grants management, and accounting services. Tanysha is a native Angeleno with more than 10 years of professional experience. She earned her MBA from Pepperdine University and has a bachelor’s degree in accounting from California State University, Dominguez Hills. Beyond numbers, Tanysha’s passion is to serve others and help within the community. She spends her free time trying new restaurants, listening to podcasts and audiobooks, taking the occasional long nap, or deep-diving into a Minions marathon.

Sohna Bruce-Oliver (she/her) is Associate Director, Community Engagement, at The Children’s Partnership (TCP), where she engages the community in policy work through relationship-building with direct service providers, community-based organizations and fellow advocacy organizations. Joining TCP in 2020, she brought her experience from a technology company specializing in addressing the social determinants of health, gaining a unique perspective on leveraging technology for positive community impacts. Sohna holds a bachelor’s degree in Communications from California State University, Bakersfield, and a master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of San Francisco. As a first-generation college graduate, her lived experience informs her passion for advocating for equitable access to education and resources for all children and families. Originally from Bakersfield, Sohna now resides in Los Angeles, where she enjoys live music, art, and attending cultural events in her free time.

Oscar Sandoval is Manager, Community Engagement, at The Children’s Partnership. He leads campaigns and initiatives that bridge the gap between policymakers and the community, while also developing accessible resources and conducting research to inform and support TCP’s advocacy goals and the well-being of communities across California. Before joining TCP, Oscar served students and families in the Bay Area as an education organizer, middle school teacher and high school advisor. In each of these roles, he emphasized the power of cultivating authentic relationships within and across communities to challenge, and ultimately dismantle, oppressive systems. Oscar received his BA in International Relations and Spanish from Stanford University, where he was also a member of the men’s rugby team and on staff at El Centro Chicano y Latino. He completed his teaching credential program at Alliant International University. The proud son of Mexican immigrants, Oscar spent his childhood in San Diego County and the Inland Empire. Outside of work, he enjoys spending time in nature, writing poems and stories, playing soccer, traveling, going to live music and art events, and kicking it with his two cats, Cielo and Nube.

Nada Hashem is Manager, Grants Administration, and in that role supports overall grantmaking and operations at The Children’s Partnership. She works closely with the project director of TCP’s Peer-to-Peer Youth Mental Health High School Pilot Demonstration, a partnership between TCP and the California Department of Health Care Services, to support all stages of grantmaking to eight high schools around California.

Nada brings with her a decade of nonprofit experience in grant management, program management and operations. Prior to The Children’s Partnership, she served as the managing director at Karam Foundation, where she dedicated herself to growing the nonprofit to empower Syrian refugee youth and families through community, mentorship and innovative education initiatives. She established the organization’s ability to both receive and award grants by creating a grant management system. Additionally, having worked directly with the communities served, she also learned the value of partnering with them to design and improve programs, addressing their needs at a deeper and more holistic level. Nada’s commitment to service and her passion for social change drove her to develop creative solutions that ensured these programs and systems ran efficiently, while maintaining transparency and compliance standards.

Nada holds a bachelor’s in computer information systems from the University of California, Riverside, and a master’s in health informatics from Boston University. She is a proud Muslim Arab American, resides in Los Angeles, and spends her free time camping out on the trail exploring nature’s beauty.

Ebony Durham (she/her) is Senior Associate, Community Engagement, and is responsible for the engagement of community members in our mental health policy work through relationship-building with direct service providers, community-based organizations, and fellow advocacy organizations. Ebony is from Sacramento and now resides in Los Angeles. She attended Alabama State University where she received her BS in Criminal Justice with a concentration in Juvenile Justice. She also attended CSU, Dominguez Hills, where she received her MA in Sociology. Ebony’s passion is helping Black people and people of the African diaspora by providing knowledge, opportunities and solutions for them to succeed in life. Ebony has experience in multiple fields from family services to K-12 education to community outreach. Ebony is a part of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated. Ebony enjoys volunteering with her professional organizations, brunch with friends, traveling, art museums and much more!

Jen Ford is an Advocacy Associate and supports the advocacy team with developing and implementing advocacy strategies that engage policymakers, key stakeholders, and build coalitions around TCP’s core issue areas. With academic training spanning history, public policy and law, Jen brings an informed perspective shaped by over eight years in the classroom. She is driven by a passion for social justice and improving children’s well-being through thoughtful policy solutions. She is a graduate of Whitworth University, Kings College London, Pace University, and Pepperdine School of Law. Jen believes in the power of uplifting underserved communities and driving positive change. Outside of work, Jenifer enjoys reading and writing fiction. She lives in La Habra with her husband and twin daughters.

Jamila Michael (she/her) is Advocacy Associate, Early Childhood Development, and supports the advocacy team with developing and implementing advocacy strategies, engaging policymakers, key stakeholders and coalitions around TCP’s advocacy issue areas. Jamila joined TCP in 2023. 

Jamila was educated at Wellesley College with a B.A. in History and is currently pursuing her graduate degree at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law. Her undergraduate degree specialized in the social movements of marginalized communities throughout the history of the United States, which ultimately fueled her career focuses moving forward. Since then, Jamila has supported first-generation college students in college readiness and scholarship applications through her local AVID program, worked to exonerate the wrongfully convicted and provide them with timely compensation at The California Innocence Project, and initiated vital discussions about BIPOC experiences among the Innocence Network staff, fostering understanding and solidarity among diverse professionals. Her philosophy of inclusivity and empowerment drives her, echoing her belief that prosperity’s table has room for all.

Since joining The Children’s Partnership, Jamila has shown great dedication to our work by working on projects to engage and educate the community and various stakeholders. She has published two TCP briefs related to early childhood development and different supports available to ensure equitable health access and the ability for all children to thrive. Additionally, Jamila has planned and supported several webinars, fostering important education and conversations to move the needle closer to true equity for all. 

Outside TCP, Jamila enjoys competitive video games, hitting the San Diego beaches, challenging gym workouts, and exploring her Afro-Caribbean heritage. Jamila is also an experienced dog walker and companion to all her community’s four-legged friends.

Jazmin is an Advocacy Associate and supports the advocacy team with developing and implementing advocacy strategies that engage policymakers, key stakeholders, and build coalitions around TCP’s core issue areas. Jazmín began her work with TCP as an undergraduate policy and communications intern. She attended The University of Pennsylvania and graduated with a BA in Health and Societies, concentrating in health policy and law. Jazmín is a proud Boyle Heights native and is passionate about social justice, equity and the intersection of the sciences, policy and the sociology of medicine. She has a particular interest in holistic health care and the role of community in public health.

Alejandra Alvarez (she/her/ella) joined The Children’s Partnership as Executive Assistant in 2022. She is an important voice for TCP, supporting the organization’s President and senior staff and often serving as the first point of contact for external parties. Ale serves as a key administrative partner, triaging communications with external stakeholders, managing scheduling requests, and anticipating logistical needs to create effective synergy. The role serves to help ensure the organization runs smoothly, with particular emphasis on efficient administrative logistics and relationship management. Ale is one of four daughters, a student, a wife and a dog mom. She has had an unconventional educational journey, completing a vocational college certificate as a PCT, and received her associate’s degree in Sociology from Southwestern College. She has worked at In-N-Out Burger, on and off, for more than 10 years, and has valued the experience for the customer support expertise it has instilled and the friendships it has allowed her to make, including meeting her now-wife. A native of San Diego and the proud daughter of Mexican immigrants, Alejandra plans to further her academic goals by going to a four-year university in the next year. She has decided to take some time off to focus on internships exploring the nonprofit sector, particularly those organizations focused on supporting marginalized youth.