AHWG Team
The Adolescent Health Working Group has a small team in place that works to improve health equity so that all youth ages 11 to 24 in California and beyond have unimpeded access to comprehensive, youth-centered, and culturally-based healthcare.
Adam Chang
Executive Director
Adam is a dedicated youth advocate with a broad background that includes 14 years of nonprofit experience. Adam has served on the board of ACLU Hawai`i and its Youth Affairs Committee while earning his law degree. Adam also worked as a legal advocate for the Medical-Legal Partnership for Children (MLPC) in Hawai`i, whereby legal professionals partnered with pediatricians to provide comprehensive care to caregivers and children. Adam excels as a community organizer, whether bringing together a panel of Muslim American scholars to present on topics of Islamophobia and homophobia, or leading conferences on gender diversity for 100+ teenagers. He has organized dozens of community panels that require relationship building with partners including student-led groups, nonprofit organizations, universities, small businesses, and corporations. Adam is an experienced educator. He has experience creating youth curriculum on topics of LGBT history, gender diversity, HIV prevention, civil rights, and leadership development. Adam has also taught as an adjunct professor at the City College of Alameda on courses of law and democracy. Adam has worked directly with refugee and asylee populations in resettlement and employment support. Adam’s international outlook and familiarity with domestic and local issues allows him to draw inspiration for community development.
Justin Clark
Communications Director
Justin (he, him) has over fifteen years of nonprofit experience, with expertise in online fundraising, digital communications, and data management. His work with AHWG is focused on implementing communications strategy, sharing AHWG’s work, and amplifying the work and stories from community partners. Justin is the co-founder and principal of Social Change Consulting, a small company that supports nonprofit organizations. Over the last eight years, he has worked with many nonprofits that focus on public health, LGBTQI+ advocacy, racial justice, education, environmental protection, and gender equity and inclusivity.
Pam Wool
Family Resource Specialist
Pam (she, her) has over 15 years of experience in nonprofit and social justice work. Her expertise ranges from program development to operations. Pam has been involved in social justice issues since earning her B.A. in Women’s Studies at Brown University. After earning her J.D. at University of California, Hastings College of the Law, she worked as a legal aid attorney and then practiced disability law in private practice. Prior to Social Change Consulting, Pam was a program director at a national nonprofit for nearly a decade, where she supported parents and caregivers of transgender, non-binary, and otherwise gender diverse youth in addition to managing the organization’s operations.
Julia Weggenmann
Adolescent Health Intern
Julia is a recent college graduate dedicated to promoting the early education and awareness of youth mental and sexual health within families and community. Having earned a B.A. in psychology from UC Santa Cruz, she is passionate about the normalization and expansion of mental health services, with a focus on strengthening youth autonomy, and caregiver relationships. Julia is eager to aid AHWG in improving the accessibility of diverse and inclusive mental and sexual health resources for youth and their families.
ADVISORY BOARD
The Adolescent Health Working Group values the leadership of its Advisory Board in pursuing its mission. Our board members also serve as ambassadors to AHWG. Please feel free to reach out to them with any questions or opportunities.
Lisa Mihaly, MS, RN
Assistant Clinical Professor, UCSF School of Nursing
Principal Nursing Faculty, UCSF School of Medicine, Division of Pediatrics
Ms. Mihaly is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the UCSF School of Nursing and principal nursing faculty for the Leadership Education in Adolescent Health program (UCSF School of Medicine, Division of Pediatrics). Her current faculty practice is at the UCSF Teen and Young Adult Clinic. She has been practicing since 2004, with a focus on underserved populations, reproductive health, young adults and adolescents. Her areas of interest include risk reduction in high-risk adolescents, health education of young adults newly responsible for managing their own health needs, intimate partner violence, and the impact of racism on education and provision of health care. Prior to becoming a nurse practitioner, she worked for 15 years in the public policy arena, advocating for low-income and high-risk children and families at local, state and federal levels — including work with the Children’s Defense Fund and the Family Violence Prevention Fund (now Futures without Violence). She received an undergraduate degree in European history from Harvard College and RN and MS (family nurse practitioner) degrees from UCSF. Outside of work, she can often be found cooking, reading novels, hiking, and knitting (rarely simultaneously).
Sasha Simon
Safety First Senior Program Manager, Drug Policy Alliance
Sasha Simon currently manages the development and evaluation of the U.S.’s first harm reduction-based drug education curriculum for 9th and 10th grade students – Safety First: Real Drug Education for Teens – at the Drug Policy Alliance. Simon has had an extensive career delivering innovative health education models at a variety of institutions, including Columbia University, City University of New York (CUNY), Gay Mens’ Health Crisis, and Health, Education & Research Occupations (HERO) High School, a 9-14 Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) created in partnership with Montefiore Medical Center, Hostos Community College and NYC Department of Education that seeks to increase the number of graduates entering careers in healthcare by offering students Associate’s degrees in Community Health and Nursing free-of-cost. An avid youth development specialist, Simon delivers youth-adult capacity building trainings to clinicians, parents and youth-serving organizations to help increase their capacity for youth participation in organizational decision-making processes. From 2012-2017, Simon served as Co-Founder and Marketing Director of the Fierce Leadership for Youth Academy, a college prep non-profit aiming to remove financial barriers to higher learning for first-gen college students of color. Through the support offered by mentors in the college admissions process, over 400 students were served and $6 million raised in scholarships and grants.
Tiffany Lambright, MPH, MS, RN, PNP
Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and Assistant Clinical Professor at the UCSF School of Nursing
Ms. Lambright is a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and Assistant Clinical Professor at the School of Nursing at the University of California, San Francisco with expertise in the intersection of adolescent development and sexual/reproductive health. As a clinician, she has worked in the public health care systems of Los Angeles, San Mateo and San Francisco counties. Her current practice is at the Children’s Health Center of San Francisco General Hospital, where she cares for adolescents and foster youth. Previous to becoming a medical provider, Ms. Lambright worked with youth in San Francisco in various capacities including through the SFUSD/Wellness Initiative partnership, as well as with several community-based organizations. She joins the AHWG Advisory Board with a history dating back to 2008 of interfacing with the agency and their resources for youth service providers. She enjoys spending time with her family, dancing, and rooting for San Francisco home teams.
Robert Francoeur, MS, LMFT, PPSC
Wellness Coordinator, Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts
Mr. Francoeur is a CA Credentialed School Counselor and oversees a school-based Wellness Initiative that helps teens gain the skills they need to cope with complex issues such as stress, trauma, suicide, bullying, depression, self-esteem, drug and alcohol use, sexual health and relationships. His interest in working with adolescents stems from the belief that providing education and support for mental health and physical health for adolescents ultimately results in healthier, happier, and better adjusted adults. Mr. Francoeur also provides weekly group clinical supervision for SFUSD Social Work Interns. As an adolescent mental health provider for over 10 years, Mr. Francoeur has often accessed AHWG’s toolkits (Behavioral Health, Understanding Minor Consent and Confidentiality in CA, and the Trauma and Resilience toolkits). He first became directly involved with AHWG in its Substance Use Subcommittee where he worked collaboratively with the Drug Policy Alliance and AHWG to conduct a pilot study at five SFUSD high schools testing the effectiveness of a harm reduction health curriculum for 9th grade students.