Emerging Leadership Award
Trailblazing recipients were honored for their innovative work in infant and early childhood mental health.
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U’nek Clarke, LICSW, LCSW-C, PMH-C
Practice Award
Clarke is a lead perinatal behavioral health specialist with the DC Mother-Baby Wellness Program of the Developing Brain Institute at Children’s National Hospital, where her primary focus is providing therapeutic support to individuals during pregnancy and postpartum.
She is certified in perinatal mental health, infant and early childhood mental health, and child-parent psychotherapy. Clarke has played a pivotal role in expanding perinatal mental health services to a dynamic community-based pediatric setting within the Children’s National Hospital System.
Angela Narayan, PhD
Policy Award
Dr. Narayan is an associate professor in the Clinical Child Psychology PhD program at the University of Denver. She has studied the enduring effects of early childhood maltreatment, exposure to violence and homelessness on long-term pathways of risk and resilience, and how the perinatal period is a window of opportunity to promote resilience and reduce traumatic stress in low-income, underserved families.
Dr. Narayan founded the PROTECT Lab at DU, which investigates how risk and resilience transfer across generations. Her research includes a multisite longitudinal study following 350 low-income families from pregnancy to kindergarten, uncovering protective factors against intergenerational trauma and psychopathology.
Amanda Yancey
Research Award
Yancey is operations director of the Ohio Head Start Association, where she oversees both the Parent Ambassador Program and the newly formed alumni group Ohio Head Start Parent Advocacy Network, which provides resources for parents and advocates of childcare, mental health and developmental disabilities to make significant policy changes.
She developed the Parent Ambassador Program ten years ago after seeing a need for parent engagement at the policy level. She has provided more than 120 parents whose children attend a Head Start center with a unique introduction to advocacy, self-awareness, leadership, goal setting and storytelling.
