#UMNMCH student Mary Kenny reflects on her dedication to the national maternal and child health (MCH) blog, MCHLeads, as an editor. She shares the value of uplifting MCH student voices through blog posts, how this work expanded her MCH network across the country through collaborating with program partners, and what is next for MCHLeads.
One of the most clear cut motivations for my professional life stems from this inquiry, “What are the questions we are not asking?” In Celeste Mergen’s Ted Talk, “What are we not Asking? Simple Solutions for Global Impact,” she invites others to lean into that question in pursuit of global health and gender equity. MCHLeads, the competency-based national MCH trainee blog, aims to highlight and address those questions (and more) through student testimonials and trainee experiences. As such, it has been a pleasure to work as one of its co-editors.
Blog Partners
In the fall of 2024, I joined the by the University of Minnesota (UMN) Center for Leadership Education for Maternal and Child Public Health’s team as the co-editor for the national trainee blog, hosted by the Center in partnership with another MCH Catalyst program. At the time, the previous co-editor from UMN and co-editor from our colleagues at the University at Albany MCH Program kindly showed me the ropes regarding editing, website curation, and communication streams with authors and their nominators from universities all across the country. Now I have the opportunity to do the same for our new partners at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee’s Catalyst Program in MCH.
Blog Reach
During my time as the co-editor for the MCHLeads, I have engaged with MCH Bureau-funded Centers of Excellence and Catalyst programs from all over the country. The program directors and staff at these institutions know their students and want to uplift their stories. Many thoughtfully and proudly share their student or alumni nominations, which prompt our follow up-and initial contact with MCH trainee authors. That in itself is an experience where I witness the MCH Core Leadership Competencies in action. Since the blog’s inception in 2019, MCHLeads aims to share a post each month for authors around the world. We have readers from 77 countries, accumulating nearly 20,000 views.
Blog Authors
Each of the student nominees who elect to write a blog post chose a MCH Leadership Competency as a focal point to ground their piece. The twelve MCH Leadership Competencies encompass three tiers of the MCH population: self, others, and the wider community. Over the past year and half (plus) of working as the co-editor, I read how these competencies shape lives and inform careers. Each piece invokes a new insight and adds meaning to my own (and hopefully the readers’) understanding of each specific competency. Knowing that the applicability of these competencies transcends across parts of this country and the world provides and sustains me with hope.
Blog Posts
Additionally, I had the opportunity to share my own work on MCHLeads. The September 2025 post, “The Power of MCH Teams,” functioned as an opportunity for me to translate and reflect my MCH experiences to date into a living body of work on the internet. When I apply to jobs later this spring, I will share that story as a part of my portfolio. As a blog, MCHLeads encourages student trainees to share their post on resumes/CVs, use it as an opportunity to showcase their accomplishments, or as a way to circulate their unique perspectives into the vast field of MCH. Stories that I have had the pleasure to read and edit span topics from breastfeeding, violence prevention, dentistry, entrepreneurship, doula providers, and many more. The blog is an intersectional, informative outlet for ideas, scholarship, identity, and lived experience. What connects us? MCH.
MCHLeads’ New Format
One of the blog components I am most proud of, which we introduced for the first time during this year’s fall blog cycle, is the new Q&A template for authors. This new template prompts writers to share their unique experiences across their academic, professional, and personal pursuits. We found three recurring themes from previous blog posts, and used those as pillars to center the new template. Now we have “About You,” “Project or Practicum Experience,” and “Reflection and Growth” sections with subsequent questions for authors to answer during their submissions. Using this template as a guide, authors have a good place to start their reflections. The prompts function as a tool for each author to share their stories and reveal insights that their fellow MCH trainees may take wisdom from. Another great side effect of this new template has been our readers’ ability to make connections to the MCH workforce, seeing how large, vast, interdisciplinary, and exciting the field has to offer trainees, current professionals, and the MCH population at large. The template allows readers to find common threads while also learning there can be nuance in their experiences. It is easier for editing purposes too!
What’s Next for MCHLeads?
I am excited to see what lies ahead for MCHLeads. Coming up this spring, we will feature more students from a variety of Catalyst programs and Centers of Excellence. These MCH trainees invest in work that changes policy, shapes interventions, and advocates for a brighter future for subsequent generations. They leave the world better than they found it. As I wrap up my time as co-editor, I plan to share what I have learned with the next co-editors in hopes of leaving the blog the way previous editors so graciously did for me. I believe in this work, in these stories, and in this modality of expression which underscores the power of the MCH field at large. Future authors and editors know about some of the questions we are not asking and, importantly, aim to find those answers.
BIO
Mary Kenny is a second-year MCH MPH student, graduating in May of 2026. Her passion area surrounds menstrual equity, education, and access. Prior to graduate school, Mary received her BA from Boston College. Connect with Mary on LinkedIn.
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