The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Maternal and Child Health Program will hold its pioneering MCH Leadership Retreat called Leadership, Legacy, and Community:  A Retreat to Advance Maternal and Child Health Scholarship and Practice in Chicago on July 16-18, 2008. 

This is a new, professional development retreat for interdisciplinary, intergenerational MCH academic and practice professionals and has been designed by an interdisciplinary, intergenerational, national planning committee.  It will provide many opportunities for MCH professionals to build and explore their leadership skills, develop community, examine their individual and collective legacy in MCH, and discuss and make recommendations about the many challenges to evidence-based practice we face in MCH.  Participants who are interested in exploring their career, legacy and professional goals and vision for the future in more depth are encouraged to spend some of their free time with Professional Coach Hanna Cooper, MPH, CPCC, who will be part of this year’s retreat.  Professional coaching is a relatively new field in which trained professionals work with individuals to explore their purpose and passion in life.

The retreat will include many excellent speakers and facilitators.  These individuals include:

·         Mario Drummonds, executive director of the Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership.

·         Donna Petersen, dean, College of Public Health, University of South Florida.

·         Carol Woltring, executive director of the Center for Health Leadership and Practice (A Center of the Public Health Institute).

·         Dick Aronson, director of the Center for Humane Worlds for Child and Youth Health.

·         Sheri Johnson, state health officer of the Department of Health and Family Services in Milwaukee.

·         Milt Kotelchuck, chairman of the MCH Program at Boston University.

·         Deborah Allen, professor, MCH Program at Boston University.

·         Cheri Pies, director of Family and Maternal and Child Health Programs in Martinez, Calif.

·         Arden Handler, director of the MCH Program at the UIC School of Public Health.

·          Russ Kirby, professor at the University of South Florida.

·         Peg Dublin, Access Community Health.

·         Magda Peck, founder of CityMatCH. 

For more information and to register online please visit http://www.uic.edu/sph/mch/mch_leadership_conference.htm or contact Kris Risley, DrPH, at (312) 996-2875 or kyrisley@uic.edu.