Congratulations to the 2022 winner!
The 2022 Award of Excellence goes to Janiya Mitnaul Williams, MA, IBCLC, RLC, CLC
Janiya Mitnaul Williams, MA, IBCLC, RLC, CLC is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, Registered Lactation Consultant, and Certified Lactation Counselor who has been supporting nursing families since 2007. She holds degrees from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (N.C. A&T SU) and Union Institute and University in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology and Human Lactation respectively.
In 2015 she created Mahogany Milk Support Group in order to promote, encourage, and normalize nursing for Black and Brown families. That same year, Janiya also became the first person of color and Non-Registered Nurse to be hired as a Lactation Consultant for the Cone Health hospital system. Currently, Janiya is the Program Director of the first Pathway 2 Human Lactation Training Program at a public Historically Black College and University (HBCU) at N.C. A&T SU (NCAT P2P) which she helped to create. She also works for the Women’s and Children’s Center at Cone Health as a Doula Services Co-Coordinator. In the Spring of 2022, she will open the first Community-Based Outpatient Lactation Clinic for a Pathway 2 program in Greensboro, N.C.
She is most passionate about creating diversity, equity, and inclusion within the field of Lactation in order to promote better health outcomes for Black and brown, marginalized, and underprivileged families because they have the greatest lactation barriers to overcome. To achieve this goal she sits on boards and is a member of organizations geared towards addressing health disparities and collaborates with researchers on projects that focus on Black maternal-child health. More than that, she developed a curriculum that equips the graduates of the NCAT P2P with a strong foundation in understanding how to recognize, address, and dismantle systemic racism in health care.
Janiya is more than deserving of the USLCA Award of Excellence!