Dear Community,
As we enter Women’s History Month, we’re reflecting on what it means to change herstory.
The ability to survive childbirth and access mental health care should never depend on race, income, gender identity, or zip code. Yet too often, it does.
At CPWA, we center survivor leadership and amplify lived experience as both medicine and evidence — for individual healing and systems change. While many of us are grieving, angry, and exhausted, we’re also building a multiracial democracy rooted in healing, dignity, and belonging.
This month, we’re honoring Dr. Diana, Psy.D., LMFT, PMH-C — clinician, advocate, and survivor.
In 1992, after giving birth to her daughter, Dr. Diana endured three years of life-threatening postpartum depression. Despite her training as a therapist, she had never been taught about postpartum depression in graduate school and was never properly assessed or diagnosed.
“Three years of suffering was far longer than I ever should have endured. Today, with a clinician trained in perinatal mental illness, three years would be reduced to several months.” – Dr. Diana, Psy.D., LMFT, PMH-C
Her experience shaped a 30-year career in reproductive mental health. She has served as an expert in more than 100 legal cases involving women criminally charged due to undiagnosed perinatal mental illness — many outcomes entirely preventable with proper screening and training.
Dr. Diana recently testified before California’s Board of Behavioral Sciences as it considered whether perinatal mental health should be required continuing education. The hearing followed advocacy led by CPWA founding partner, the California Chapter of Postpartum Support International (PSI-CA) through AB 2581, which required California’s Healing Arts Boards to consider maternal mental health training requirements for all nurses, physician assistants, masters' and doctoral-level mental health therapists. PSI-CA coordinated testimony from clinicians and advocates, including Dr. Barnes, to highlight the urgent public health need for mandated perinatal mental health education across all disciplines.
The Board ultimately declined to mandate training, continuing to classify it as “specialized.” But perinatal mental health is not niche — it is foundational to family wellbeing and professional ethics.
SB 626 — California’s Perinatal Mental Health Screening & Treatment Bill — is still moving forward, though agency negotiations have been challenging.
Concerns raised include case management clarity, reporting requirements, and cross-agency coordination. We are tightening amendments to clarify that SB 626 does not create a new benefit amidst the state’s budget deficit — it strengthens accountability within existing structures to ensure high-risk parents receive coordinated care.
In parallel, we are convening a California Perinatal Mental Health State Agency Roundtable on April 28 to align agencies, health systems, and community leaders around implementation and equity.
Policy change requires both pressure and partnership. We are doing both.
CPWA is also participating in the statewide Choose Children 2026 campaign, a coalition working to elevate young children and family wellbeing in California’s next gubernatorial election. We invite community members to attend the Los Angeles candidate conversation on March 17 at the California Community Foundation, where candidates will discuss their vision for maternal health, child care, early learning, and family economic stability.
To strengthen this moment, we are expanding our Breaking the Silence Storybook from 30 to 50 stories by April 1. We need your voice.
Parents, partners, providers, birth workers, and loved ones — your lived experience demonstrates urgency and helps decision-makers understand the human stakes of policy.
We’re also excited to launch a new story section on our website, where each story has its own shareable page by region.
If you’ve been thinking about submitting — now is the time!
Join us on Wednesday, May 20, 8:30am–4:00pm at Wellnest in South LA for From Pain to Power 2.0: A Community Convening on Perinatal Mental Health Storytelling & Systems Change.
This convening will build on the success of our 2024 From Pain to Power LA event, bringing together survivors, providers, policymakers, and community leaders for a day rooted in storytelling, accountability, and systems change.
We are grateful to our early sponsors, First 5 LA, the Office of Supervisor Hilda Solis and Wellnest.
If you are able, please consider attending, becoming a sponsor, or making an individual contribution to support survivor participation.
View sponsorship opportunities
Thank you for walking this path with us — in grief, in courage, in solidarity. Together, we are changing herstory.
With gratitude and resolve,
Cassie Gardener Manjikian, MPH
Co-Founder & Director
California Perinatal Wellness Alliance
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