Jennifer Rousseau is a long-time volunteer with the Save Abandoned Babies Foundation in Illinois and recently joined the NSHA as a Board member. She is a Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner and works as an Assistant Professor at Rush University College of Nursing. In her current role, Jennifer coordinates a program  where nurses make home visits to new Moms and their babies throughout Chicago. Jennifer earned her Doctorate at Rush University with a focus on screening for depression in the early postpartum period. This initiative is now standard practice on the mother-baby unit at the hospital. She has also led curriculum innovations including the use of OB simulation for students in the maternal-newborn course. Jennifer was recently awarded the Rush University Excellence in Community Service Award for her work on behalf of abandoned and relinquished infants and their mother and she has published several articles in the nursing literature, including a recent one in The Journal of Emergency Nursing with her co-presenter.

Prior to joining NSHA’s Board of Directors, John Salluard worked for a medium-sized, privately held corporation in Atlanta where he served as the Vice President of Finance and Treasurer for 36 years before retiring. Today, he lives in North Georgia with his wife with one daughter and four grandchildren. John graduated from the University of Alabama in Birmingham, Alabama. Today, John is an active member in his community and church. He volunteers as a board member with NSHA because he wants to do his part to prevent innocent babies from being wrongfully abandoned in his community and throughout the nation. In his free time, he enjoys traveling, spending time outdoors, and creating memories with his grandchildren.

It all began on a “routine” 1997 afternoon when Tim Jaccard, a paramedic with the Nassau County Police Department responded to a radio call for a child not breathing at a County Court House in Hempstead, New York. Tim realized this neonaticide was a national crisis and decided  to found and incorporate the AMT Children of Hope Foundation in New York State. The effort to move “Safe Haven” legislation through the many states began. This unprecedented concept for legislation to offer a birth mother who had hid her pregnancy or was simply in crisis, an alternative to giving up her newborn without harming the infant, was unheard of and met with substantial resistance. Eventually these efforts successfully resulted in the enactment into law of the Infant Abandonment Act by New York’s Governor Pataki in 2001. For years Tim testified before legislative hearings to advance the cause of Safe Haven legislation across this nation. By 2008 all 50 states had a version of a Safe Haven law on the books.

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​Founding board member of both the Save Abandoned Babies Foundation (2001) and
National Safe Haven Alliance (2004). Dawn wrote and lead the passage of the Illinois
Abandoned Newborn Infant Protection Act. She founded the 501(c)(3) Save Abandoned
Babies Foundation to raise awareness of Illinois’ Safe Haven law. Dawn has been recognized by the Illinois State Senate, the Northbrook Civic Federation, is the recipient of Ever Thrive Illinois’ advocacy award, the recipient of the Illinois State Treasurer’s “Woman to Wo man: Making a Difference” award, and the recipient of the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois’ “Women of Vision” award. The Chicago Sun-Times acknowledged Dawn’s contributions by naming her one of the “50 People Who Make Chicago A Better Place.” The Save Abandoned Babies Foundation was honored by Prevent Child Abuse Illinois with the “Program Excellence Award” and received special recognition at the March of Dimes’ Jonas Salk Health Leadership Awards. Knowing that the baby safe haven law only works if desperate parents know there is a safe and legal alternative to unsafe abandonment, she continues to work tirelessly to save babies.

Jeanine Castagna has been working in the field of adoption for over twenty years.  She received her law degree from Hofstra University in 1996 and has been practicing adoption law ever since.  Fifteen years ago, Jeanine started her own practice that focuses specifically on adoption law. Throughout her career, Jeanine has been involved in over seven hundred private placement domestic newborn adoptions, step-parent adoptions and international re-adoptions.  She is a fellow of the Academy of Adoption and Assisted Reproduction Attorneys, a member of the Adoption Committee of the New York State Bar Association, the American Fertility Association, RESOLVE, the National Infertility Network Exchange, and of DES Action.  Jeanine and her husband are founding members of the Tender Loving Care Foundation, a non-profit organization supporting the parents of babies in the neonatal intensive care unit of the Northwell Health System in New York, as well as serving on the Board of Directors of that organization.  In 2008 Jeanine received an Angels in Adoption award from the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute.

Liisa Speaker is the owner of Speaker Law Firm in Lansing, MI. She is a family 

law appellate attorney, with a special emphasis on child-related cases, including adoption
and Safe Delivery of Newborns Law appeals.