In recognition of March as Women’s History Month, we highlight the achievements of inspiring women across Los Angeles County who make important contributions every day to eliminate bias and discrimination from our lives and institutions. Through this month’s spotlight series, we celebrate women like Melisssa Franklin, EdD, MBA, who bring meaning to the 2024 Women’s History Month theme, “Women Who Advocate for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.”
Dr. Franklin is a system transformation leader with over 25 years of experience in organizational development, community engagement and communications strategy for public agencies, philanthropic organizations, and community initiatives. She is Los Angeles County’s first Black Director of Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health (MCAH), which is housed in the Department of Public Health’s Health Promotion Bureau.
Appointed MCAH Director in November of 2022, Dr. Franklin oversees programs that support the health and wellbeing of pregnant individuals, infants and children, including the African American Infant and Maternal Mortality Prevention Initiative (which she co-designed and launched in 2018 as a Pritzker Fellow), Black Infant Health Program, Asthma Coalition, Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, Help Me Grow, Home Visitation Programs, Nurse Family Partnership, and Positive Youth Development.
What strategies or approaches have you found most effective in promoting inclusivity and combatting discrimination within contexts or environments important to you?
First is starting with me and my mindset. In this journey, I’ve come to realize that I am already liberated as a human being, fully embodied with dignity, agency and power. The work of promoting inclusivity and combatting discrimination is just as much about liberating systems from harmful practices that continue to perpetuate harm, as it is about liberating people from those systems.
Second, there is no change without an “us” to make that change happen. Policies, practices, resources and programs are helpful but will not go very far, in terms of impact, without the voice of the PEOPLE, moving in solidarity. This includes people working within systems of care.
With that said, central to this must be a commitment to amplifying the voices and wisdom of individuals with lived experience, as well as community leaders, ensuring that their perspectives inform every significant decision made on behalf of communities. Additionally, I prioritize modeling cultural humility, inclusion, and self-reflective leadership, recognizing the transformative power of these qualities. Leaning in to system stretching and policy advancement as game-changer strategies.
Finally, enough cannot be said about the importance of building momentum around love, joy, and abundance as outcomes. Barely making it just doesn’t cut it for me. My babies and I both survived their births, but I cannot say we thrived through it. The fact of the matter is, some communities have been on the receiving end of inattentional thwarting of their access to wellbeing by racism, prejudice, discrimination and economic injustice. I am very clear about that and invite others to lean into the possibilities that open up when we together adopt equity and inclusivity as a part of the DNA of systems and not a side project.
At the end of the day, for me, it’s all about love, baby! The rest of the work is simply helping people and systems realize and walk in that.
When it feels like you aren’t making progress, how do you keep going?
Sometimes I cry, sometimes I talk to a friend, I have a spiritual practice, and I pause for the cause to turn my attention to gratitude. When I do that, I focus on where progress is being made and the courageous changemakers in our County making that progress. I appreciate that in our County, we have support from the Department of Public Health’s Leadership and the Board of Supervisors to center equity and work with a justice lens. This makes it easier to remind myself that injustice we are combatting is centuries in the making, so alleviating the suffering it causes is a long game as well.
I also turn my attention to the individuals I am working alongside, including the wonderful team here at Maternal, Child and Adolescent Health who are doing the same. I have a saying, “It is well, all is well” which is how I reconnect with the hope I hold in my heart for a brighter future and for a normalizing of love and joy as outcomes that absolutely every human being deserves.
What is your favorite self-care activity or routine?
It changes, based on what my life is like that day or week: Dancing, rollerblading, drawing are some of those things, but hugs with my kids and husband top the list.
