Announcements

North Sound ACH announces incoming CEO

May 27, 2026 by North Sound ACH staff Leave a Comment

Arlesia Bailey to succeed Liz Baxter as the organization’s leader on July 1, 2026

After a thoughtful search and interview process, the North Sound Accountable Community of Health (ACH) Board of Directors has selected Arlesia Bailey to be its next Chief Executive Officer. North Sound ACH is a nonprofit organization serving a five-county region in Northwest Washington which supports a diverse array of partners and organizations to meet the health, social, and other needs of community members so they can thrive.

Arlesia Bailey (left) will succeed Liz Baxter on July 1, 2026 at North Sound ACH.

Arlesia has been part of North Sound ACH’s leadership team since March 2024, when she joined as the Chief Transformation Officer, leading work across the region’s five counties – Snohomish, Skagit, Island, San Juan, and Whatcom – spanning Medicaid waiver implementation, health-related social needs, and care coordination, with a focus on sustainability as conditions change. The Board’s decision reflects confidence in Arlesia’s leadership, deep commitment to health equity, and ability to guide the organization into its next chapter while staying grounded in North Sound ACH’s mission to advance community health and well-being throughout the region. She will officially assume the role of CEO on July 1, 2026.

Our regional partners are facing a tough economic climate along with reductions in public health and social services. Arlesia brings transformational leadership, with 30+ years at the intersection of healthcare, public systems, and community which will serve North Sound ACH and our network of partners well. She understands the importance of relationships among and with partners, especially with the tribes in the North Sound region – those relationships and shared wisdom have shaped North Sound ACH for the last 10 years.

Prior to joining North Sound ACH, Arlesia served as a senior leader at Seattle Children’s, where she led major health equity investments, including the expansion of primary care into historically under-resourced communities. She is also a co-founder and partner of weAVS Collective, a health equity and social justice consulting firm that supports health systems nationally. Arlesia resides in Seattle and has served on the boards of Wellspring Family Services, Seattle Youth Recreation Foundation, and is a member of the Rotary Club of Seattle.

Arlesia often introduces herself first as “Charley, Geneva, and Marie’s granddaughter.” The stories and lived experiences of her grandparents — all of whom migrated north from the Deep South — profoundly shaped her understanding of community, resilience, and inequity. Their influence continues to guide her commitment to centering community voice, disrupting inequities, and improving health outcomes for all people.

There will be a thoughtful transition between outgoing CEO Liz Baxter and Arlesia, who already have a strong working relationship. “I cannot have imagined a better candidate for this role,” Liz shared. “North Sound ACH and its partners are very special and knowing that the work and relationships are in good hands means so much. We had incredible candidates, and to have Arlesia be the Board’s selection is inspiring. She will lead the organization into its next chapter and I’m excited to see what comes next.”

“Arlesia brings the experience, relationships, and values-centered leadership needed to guide North Sound ACH into its next chapter,” shared Board Chair Kevin Riley.

The Board and staff also expressed deep appreciation for Liz, the founding CEO of North Sound ACH. “On behalf of the Board of Directors, I also want to express our deep gratitude to Liz Baxter for her visionary leadership and unwavering commitment to this organization and region,” said Kevin Riley. “Liz helped build North Sound ACH from the ground up and established a strong foundation rooted in partnership, equity, and community trust. We are grateful for her leadership and for her support in ensuring a thoughtful transition into this next era.”

For more information, please contact us at Communications@NorthSoundACH.org.

Network Dispatch: The Way Station

December 17, 2024 by Megan Stephenson Leave a Comment

Before the pandemic, people experiencing homelessness lacked access to primary medical and behavioral health care, and services we don’t always think about: toilets, showers, and laundry. COVID-19 created even more barriers to accessing these services. The Way Station provides a safe place to recuperate after a medical event, access to hygiene services, and comprehensive medical and behavioral health services that are currently lacking in our community.

*The Way Station facility manager, Don Cook. Photo provided by Unity Care NW.*

The Way Station celebrated its grand opening on November 12 – open Monday to Friday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. in downtown Bellingham, 1500 N. State St. Partners instrumental to this facility include Unity Care NW, PeaceHealth, Whatcom County, and Opportunity Council, in addition to North Sound ACH Collaborative Action Network funding.

“We recognize that good health extends beyond the walls of our hospital and clinics,” said Chuck Prosper, chief executive at PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center. “By investing in these community organizations, we are helping address the impact of social drivers of health and creating pathways to a healthier, more equitable future.”

Conversations about this idea started at Unity Care NW in 2017, and the project partners came together in 2019. The planning phase included site visits to similar facilities in other communities, and they recently hosted a group of representatives from Langley BC, WA Representative Joe Timmons, and Whatcom County Executive Satpal Sidhu to learn about The Way Station.

They have stayed consistent to the original vision for The Way Station based on their 2018 needs assessment, with some additions to the services planned, including a hot box for cleaning items affected by body bugs, and providing clean socks, shirts, and underwear. PeaceHealth is working on advocating for Medicaid reimbursement for respite services (they will be the referrer; Opportunity Council will manage those services at the Way Station). However, they are facing challenges finding funding for ongoing operations: many funders want to support launching new programs, fewer will help sustain work that is ongoing and will be transformative in the long term. Unrestricted operating support is the most pressing need, especially for hygiene supplies.

Rachel Lucy, director of community health for the Northwest Network of PeaceHealth, said supporting The Way Station aligns with PeaceHealth’s core values of respect and social justice, and the facility meets a very critical need in northwest Washington. “There are few circumstances more morally distressing for our health care workers than knowing that someone they just cared for in the hospital will be returning to life on the streets or unstable housing,” she noted.

The Way Station is located at 1500 N. State Street in Bellingham. Photos provided by Unity Care NW.

“In Whatcom County, this is the reality for patients experiencing homelessness following a hospital stay. This was the driving motivator” that brought PeaceHealth and its partners together to establish the new facility, she said.

Unity Care NW led public engagement through listening sessions and panel discussions with businesses and residents located around The Way Station site, helping them see the facility as one of the solutions to the challenges they expressed about the concentration of unhoused folks in the neighborhood. For example, Unity Care NW staff explained that The Way Station will offer a private and dignified place for folks to use bathrooms, reducing requests from individuals experiencing homelessness for use of businesses’ restrooms.

There will be acute walk-in care at The Way Station (addressing immediate health needs onsite and then refer them to a regular provider for primary care), as well as substance use disorder treatment. Don Cook is the new facility manager; a Unity Care NW employee of 20 years, who has built a great rapport with his clients and is highly skilled at de-escalation.

CEO Search Launches

November 18, 2024 by North Sound ACH staff Leave a Comment

The Seventh Generation Principle is shared by many Native American nations and tribes, which emphasizes the importance of thinking ahead and making decisions that will benefit future generations. North Sound ACH has benefited greatly from learning from the eight tribes in the North Sound, upon whose land we sit and work.

With that in mind, Liz has let us know that it’s time to begin the search for the next CEO for North Sound ACH. There will be opportunities for partner engagement as we launch the search, please see below to learn more about the recruitment and search committee processes. You can view the job description here on our website, and hope that you will share it within your networks. We are working with Diversity Recruiters to manage the search, a firm we worked with in a prior successful search. We anticipate the search process taking approximately six months.

I want to thank Liz for the thoughtful way she is approaching this pivotal transition, and for her extraordinary tenure from the early days with two staff, to where we are today: post pandemic and growing with a new Medicaid waiver. Liz continues to advocate for a stronger network of regional partners, working together to innovate in their work today, in ways that result in a transformed region for the next generation and beyond.

– Cheryl Rasar
Board Chair

“It is such an honor to shepherd the work of North Sound ACH and its partners, leveraging resources to strengthen the work across the region. Over the next six months, I’m looking forward to helping the board identify an incredible leader ready to carry this work and grow opportunities to make this a region where all feel they belong.”

– Liz Baxter

There are a few ways that you can participate in the search for the North Sound ACH CEO.

Read updates in newsletters and emails, and share the job posting within your personal and professional networks. Investment of time = 3 hours
Respond to online surveys regarding interview process design options and creation of sample interview questions. Investment of time = 3 hours
Participate on an interview panel. This will require consistent commitment to prep sessions, debrief sessions, and the interview sessions, which will be virtual and in-person. Investment of time = 8-10 hours
Participate on the formal search committee. This will require commitment to attend roughly 10 meetings (primarily virtual) over the course of late November – early April. The tasks that the committee will engage in are as follows: design interview process, review top six candidate profiles and select who will be invited to interview, participate in 1-3 round of interviews. Investment of time = minimum of 20 hours, not to exceed 40 hours over four months.

If you would like to learn more about these opportunities or want to be considered for the search committee or interview panel, please send an email to Nicole Leckband at Diversity Recruiters (nicole@diversityrecruiters.com). The deadline for consideration is Wednesday, November 27, 2024.

From left, Board Chair Cheryl Rasar, CEO Liz Baxter, CEqO Hallie Pritchett, COO Nicole Willis, and CTO Arlesia Bailey.

Network Dispatch: Mobile Mama Grows Internship Program

September 24, 2024 by Megan Stephenson Leave a Comment

Recently celebrating 10 years in the community, the perinatal therapy practice Mobile Mama is growing thanks to community support, such as the Collaborative Action Network Review Committee. Mobile Mama provides counseling services from conception through motherhood.

In 2017, a group of partners in Whatcom County formed a perinatal mental health task force to build community capacity to support families during pregnancy and the transition to parenthood Mobile Mama Therapy, Whatcom County Health and Community Services, Bellingham Center for Healthy Motherhood, and a parent advocate. Becoming fiscally sponsored by Whatcom Family & Community Network in 2021 allowed the task force to apply for and braid funds for a variety of specific projects. One project is Mobile Mama’s Master’s Level Clinical Counseling Internship in Perinatal Mental Health. In 2023, the ACH CAN and the Mount Baker Foundation funded the expansion of this program from a one intern pilot project to three internship slots. In 2024, the Healthy Children’s Fund contracted directly with Mobile Mama to support three more interns over the next two years. Read more about this program at Whatcom Talk [click here].

The recent grant from the ACH includes funding to conduct a feasibility study on replicating the Mobile Mama internship program and expanding the perinatal mental health workforce to other areas in Whatcom County and into Skagit, and San Juan counties. These three counties share perinatal mental health capacity-building work with support from Perinatal Support Washington and the Department of Children, Youth, and Families, as well as have access to PeaceHealth infrastructure, including hospitals, clinical practices, and community benefit grant opportunities.

The internship program directly increases access to care by developing a local mental health workforce skilled in addressing perinatal mood and anxiety disorders who work with Medicaid enrollees.

2024-2025 Interns shown here – Meredith LaPlante, Melody Eastman, Aliya Qadri, Rachel Jones. Photo provided by Mobile Mama.

At a recent visit by ACH staff, Mobile Mama shared the internships are going well –each intern provides intakes and counseling for up to 12 clients per week, and receives advanced training in perinatal mental health and supervision hours each week. Applications for this internship have “skyrocketed” as word has spread! Mobile Mama hopes the upcoming applicant pool will include more students culturally and linguistically matched to the community.

Because there are more clients than capacity to serve, Mobile Mama continues to seek sustainable funding to support the internship program, as they cannot bill insurance providers for internship services.

Mobile Mama is looking to partner with the Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) and others, to better understand how to advocate for Medicaid changes, negotiate rates, and support programming, as well as being part of discussions on navigating the issues around credentialing, reimbursement rates, and billing for interns under the supervision of trained clinical supervisors with MCOs. To connect, reach out to Michelle@MobileMama.com.

Announcements

Arlesia Bailey to succeed Liz Baxter as the organization’s leader on July 1, 2026

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