Leadership TEam

Jalana Lazar, PhD, MPH, CNM, WHNP-BC, is a midwife with 15 years of experience facilitating groups, training other group care facilitators and trainers, and researching group care globally. In addition to Group Care Global work, she is on faculty at Georgetown University School of Nursing and an honorary lecturer at City, University of London. Jalana is part of the implementation research team carrying out the European Union-funded GC1000 initiative in 7 countries (Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 848147) and leads the GCG work to build a Group Care Community of Practice.

She is passionate about advocacy and building a strong global group care community of practice. 

Deborah L. Billings, PhD, works closely with the Board of Directors to further the mission of Group Care Global. She directs GCG’s work and is part of the implementation research team carrying out the European Union-funded GC1000 initiative in 7 countries (Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 848147).  

As Faculty Affiliate and Researcher with the Institute for Families in Society (IFS) at the University of South Carolina (USA), she led the research carried out by a multidisciplinary, multilingual team for The Voices/Voces Initiative: Moving Forward through Women’s Voices to Address Pregnancy and Birth Inequities in South Carolina. In that same state, she led a multi-year implementation and process evaluation of scaling-up Group Care.

Over three decades, Deborah has collaborated with health systems throughout Africa and Latin America to shift policies and practices to address stigma, bias, and discrimination in the delivery of sexual and reproductive health services. She has worked as a researcher and consultant with global organizations including Ipas, the World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Oak Foundation, UN Women, and UNFPA, as well as with national initiatives on sexual and reproductive health with the National Institute of Public Health (INSP) in Mexico. At the University of South Carolina, Deborah is Affiliate Faculty at the Institute for Families in Society (College of Social Work) and Women’s and Gender Studies, Faculty Mentor for the Maternal and Child Health Leadership, Education, and Advancement in Undergraduate Pathways (LEAP) Program, and Adjunct Associate Professor at the Arnold School of Public Health. She also serves as Adjunct Associate Professor at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Deborah can be reached at:  dbillings@groupcare.global