Maternal Mental Health NOW (MMHN) was founded in 2007 by Kimberly Wong, Esq following her personal experience with severe postpartum depression. Despite good healthcare and strong familial and social support, she struggled to find timely and informed help within her community. Upon recovery, Kimberly convened a group of passionate and dedicated individuals – including people with lived experience, health care providers, mental health clinicians, public health experts and more – to fix the perinatal mental health care system in Los Angeles County, with an emphasis on the area’s most vulnerable populations. The result of these convenings were the following three program areas:

• Training & Technical Assistance – builds the capacity of health care, mental health care and social service providers to identify and respond to perinatal depression and anxiety.
• Policy & Advocacy – increases access to timely, informed and culturally responsive perinatal mental health care.
• Public Awareness – reduces stigma associated with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders so that all those who are suffering are not afraid or ashamed to seek help.

Over the past 15 years, Maternal Mental Health NOW has trained over 19,000 providers, connected over 33,000 individuals to timely and informed care through online resource directory and statewide legislation (AB 2193 and AB 3032), and raised awareness amongst 146,000 pregnant and postpartum people. MMHN is a fiscally-sponsored project of Community Partners, and plans to operate as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in mid-2024.