The ACE Awareness team is composed of passionate Memphians, life-long child advocates, and strategic communicators. We are committed to revolutionizing policy and practice, and transforming communities. Your engagement with us is always welcome and appreciated.
Our Team

Prior to leading NCCP, Dr. Wilson-Simmons was the senior associate for adolescent health and development at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, where she managed the foundation’s investment strategy for adolescent health and taking to larger scale evidence-based interventions that improve systems and frontline practice. She also served as associate director Evidence2Success, the foundation’s model for improving child outcomes through school-public systems-community partnerships. While in Boston, Dr. Wilson-Simmons was director of the Health Promotion Program for Urban Youth at Boston City Hospital, principal investigator of the first Office of Minority Health-funded grant to develop a community-based coalition to prevent homicide in the African American community, and director of a five-year National Institutes of Health-funded intervention study of the long- term impact of a comprehensive adolescent health program on reductions in multiple-risk behaviors related to violence, substance abuse, and early and unprotected sexual activity among inner-city African American and Latinix youth.
Dr. Wilson-Simmons grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and between her undergraduate and graduate studies was a reporter for The Pittsburgh Courier. She earned a doctorate in public health with a concentration in maternal and child health from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; a master’s degree in urban journalism from the University of Minnesota; and a bachelor’s degree in journalism and English from Shippensburg University.

Ms. Bailey earned her undergraduate degree in human ecology from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and a master’s degree in counseling with a concentration in marriage and family therapy from East Tennessee State University. Her professional training includes trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy-TF-CBT, body- focused psychotherapy and nonviolence towards the self, eye movement desensitization resolution therapy, and Yoga Nidra I. As a therapist in private practice, she creates healing spaces for individuals and families as they navigate through various stressors encountered in life. She has presented at the West Tennessee Counseling Association’s conference on topics such as “The Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences Throughout the Lifespan” and “Leveraging DBT Skills & Body-Oriented Psychotherapy to Optimize Experiential Learning.”

A native of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, Ms. Ross worked in the banking industry for five years before joining the foundation in January 2016 as an executive administrative assistant. Prior to that, she was an auditor for a company specializing in small business loans and provided administrative support for Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. Ms. Ross earned her undergraduate degree in communications sciences and disorders, speech, and language pathology from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.