About Us - Family Voices of Tennessee

Family Voices of Tennessee, LLC is dedicated to providing welcoming and respectful support to families of ALL types, including ALL cultures, ALL languages, ALL sexual orientations, ALL gender identities, ALL abilities, ALL religions, and ALL people regardless of citizenship status.

We understand that our success is dependent on our willingness to acknowledge systemic oppression, interrogate our own internal bias, and act with humility to eliminate barriers as we identify them.

Ashlie Bell-Seibers is the Director of Family Voices of Tennessee (FVTN) at the Tennessee Disability Coalition (TDC). Seibers leads a team of fellow Lived Experts who work to improve public policy, long-term services and supports, and health equity for children and youth with special healthcare needs (CYSHN) and disabilities. Seibers also serves as a Lived Expert on the Children’s Interagency Coordinating Council with the U.S Department of Health and Human Services and co-leads the Family First Prevention Plan Leaders (FPPL) peer group through the Capacity Building Center for States. She is a first-generation college student and grew up in informal kinship care. Seibers is the proud chosen parent of a son with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) who grew up in the foster care system. She also identifies as a person with multiple disabilities, including being a cancer survivor. Before joining TDC, Seibers served as an Associate Policy Analyst with Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago. In that role, she worked jointly with state and local child welfare jurisdictions to build their capacity and successfully implement evidence-based strategies to improve family outcomes in safety, permanency, and well-being. Prior to this, Seibers attained considerable knowledge serving as a Developmental Program Coordinator with the Tennessee Department of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and in various positions for the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services. Seibers holds a Master of Social Work in Organizational Leadership and a graduate certificate in Trauma Treatment from the University of Tennessee.

Molly Anderson is the Director of Peer Support and joined in August 2023. Molly has a nonverbal disability, called Apraxia, and utilizes American Sign Language and assistive technologies for communication. She also serves an a governor appointed member of the Tennessee Council on Developmental Disabilities. Molly is an Alabama native and moved to Tennessee to get her Bachelor’s degree from Maryville College. She is married with two beautiful daughters named Lucy and Lela. Molly also holds a master’s degree in Political Management from George Washington University. Molly is known to many in the community for her passion and tenacity!

Leah Williamson is the Program Coordinator for the PEARS program. Leah is the parent of a child born with a profound bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. After completing her service with the US Navy in 2008 she decided to call Memphis home. As a parent of four children, she has first-hand experience in navigating the early intervention system in Tennessee. Her eldest son, Malcolm, was identified at 3 years old at US Naval Hospital Bangor. The family was immediately connected to resources but not to other families with the same experience. She understood the need to connect with other parents and children. Malcolm uses ASL and also has a cochlear implant. He attends Tennessee School for the Deaf in Knoxville, TN. Leah is a fantastic role model for other parents and understands the unique needs of each individual family and child with hearing loss.

Tonya Bowman is the Statewide Family Resource Specialist for Family Voices of Tennessee. She has served in this role since 2007. Tonya is the mother of three, two young adults and one in high school, which provides her with the lived experience of special healthcare needs and disabilities. Tonya loves working alongside other people who are passionate about serving children and families. She utilizes her voice to share the parent perspective across various councils, committees and boards. Tonya and family live in Nashville TN.

Kenshunnda Wadji is a PEARS Parent Guide. She is a professional parent, the most important member of each of the teams that support her child, and she take that role very seriously. She is the parent of two impressive children. Her daughter is in the gifted program and her son is in the special needs program. She believe every child deserves a chance at an education no matter what. Children need skills to keep learning throughout their lives. She have seen many things that are not working including issues that families and children with special needs are facing. She is currently raising a deaf plus child, and has first-hand understanding of the struggles many special needs parents face today. Her son is a fighter, he has overcome many obstacles. She give both of her children the best of everything she has without a second thought. People ask how she manages the pressure of being a special needs parent and she says there is nothing else she could do but give her son a chance at everything he deserves. She understands how families make decisions when there is limited time and even more limited resources. She knows that giving every child a chance to become independent is important. She is convinced that a child’s success correlates to getting access to resources available. She will not rest until her son’s needs are understood and met by all the members of his team that support him.

Dorca Rose was born and raised in Venezuela, where she trained as a computer programmer. After more than 20 years, she immigrated to the USA, where her educational journey expanded to include areas such as special education and health translation. For over a decade, Dorca dedicated her career to special education, working with several agencies in Tennessee that provided education and training to parents of youth and young adults, including parent-to-parent learning programs. Driven by a desire to broaden her knowledge and experience across various age groups and disabilities, she joined Family Voices, where she assists individuals with resources, self-advocacy, and more. Dorca is also a mother of two teenagers with special needs. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, meeting new people, and listening to music.

Merritt Holmberg is a Nashville native but moved to New York City in 2001 to work as a nurse and experience an excitingly wide variety of cultures. Merritt worked as a nursing administrator for several years in New York City’s social services. Merritt and her husband served as foster parents for more than four years and ended up adopting a son through the foster care system. Merritt, her husband, and their four children enjoyed a vibrant though unconventional family life in Manhattan before moving to Nashville in 2021. While in NYC, one of Merritt’s children was diagnosed at age 5 years with bilateral moderate-severe sensorineural (high frequency) hearing loss. It’s believed that Merritt’s daughter was born this way, though was diagnosed very late, having experienced severe gaps and mismanagement in her daughters medical care and educational services. Upon learning of her daughters hearing issues, Merritt has made it her job to advocate for her daughters needs and relishes the opportunity to walk alongside any families who have hearing loss as a part of their stories.

History of Family Voices

Family Voices, Inc., was founded in 1992 by family leaders concerned about the changing health care environment and the implications for our children with disabilities, chronic illnesses, or other special health care needs.

Based in New Mexico, Family Voices, is a network of leaders working with families and professionals at the local, state, and national level to improve health care and related services for children.

Family Voices of Tennessee started in 1993 as a program of the Tennessee Disability Coalition and became the first state chapter formally sanctioned by the national organization in the last quarter of 2000. Family-Voices of Tennessee was one of six Family-Voices state programs during 1999-2001 to participate in a pilot program to develop Family-to-Family Health Information Centers (F2FHICs).

These F2FHICs are designed to be family-friendly places to learn about health care service systems and programs for children with disabilities, chronic illnesses, and special health care needs. Their purpose is to provide training or assistance to families in navigating various service systems, including Medicaid and TennCare, SSI for Children, Title V (Children’s Special Services), Early Intervention (TEIS), and other programs.

Today, Family Voices of Tennessee operates as an LLC under the umbrella of the Tennessee Disability Coalition. Family Voices of Tennessee continues to operate the F2FHIC and has expanded to include the Tennessee Parent to Parent affiliate program, the nationally recognized PEARS program, Voices 4 Choices, and a growing youth program.