YVONNE WESLEY, RN, PhD, FAAN
Independent Health Consultant
Y. Wesley Consulting
Rahway, New Jersey
Yvonne Wesley has consistently sought to improve nursing care in the maternal child health arena beginning in a hospital setting and expanding to community health centers for the poor and uninsured and currently, the state and nation. Her eagerness to learn more about a new disease called AIDS led her back to school and eventually to a qualitative research study to understand why HIV pregnant women had repeated pregnancies.
Dr. Wesley held administrative roles as a Program Development Specialist and Research Manager at University Hospital, Director of Nursing at Newark Community Health Centers, Vice-president for Research and Development with the Northern New Jersey Maternal Child Health Consortium, and finally, as Vice-president for Community Relations at Meridian Health System. In each of these roles, Dr. Wesley demonstrated her commitment to nursing excellence by creating environments that foster exemplary practice. While at Northern New Jersey MCH Consortium, Dr. Wesley oversaw day to day project objectives in five counties, reaching more than 6,000 women of childbearing age per year and offering social services, community outreach services and educational programs. At Meridian Health, Yvonne conducted their first community wide needs assessment providing direction for community outreach projects. The resulting need assessment report for Monmouth and Ocean county residents is still used today.
Dr. Wesley currently implements the Leadership Institute for Black Nurses at New York University College of Nursing. Having completed its second year, thirty-four Fellows have participated in this Institute designed to empower nurses who seek career advancement in education, research and administration. Dr. Wesley co-chaired the Blue Ribbon Panel on Black Infant Mortality, a New Jersey project that received national recognition and media attention. She was also a member of Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s transition team and chaired his Child and Family Well-being Policy Group which voiced a shared commitment to improve access, citizen involvement, and help for the city’s most vulnerable population as well as best practice standards within the Health Department. As a member of Governor Corzine’s transition team, she was instrumental in developing Health Care and Senior Service Policies in 2005.
Dr. Wesley is calm and insightful; she seeks innovative approaches to old problems. She shares her scholarly approach to these problems as an adjunct professor as well as through her research and publications which focus on minority health and disparate health outcomes. Dr. Wesley continues to be an outspoken advocate for maternal-child health.