Media Contacts
Amaya Smith
Amaya Smith is vice president for marketing and communications at the National Partnership for Women & Families. In that role she oversees strategic messaging as well as digital and earned communications around issues important to women and families. These issues include reproductive justice, women’s health care and workplace fairness. Smith works to ensure that stakeholders and the public understand that women’s health and reproductive freedom is inextricably entwined with economic justice. Before joining National Partnership she served as Communications Director and Strategic Advisor to the President, at the AFL-CIO. Prior to joining the AFL-CIO Smith served as a Press Secretary for the American Association for Justice (AAJ). She also served as the South Carolina Press Secretary for the Obama for America campaign during the 2008 Democratic primary.
Smith developed experience working with diverse media outlets and constituencies as a Regional Press Secretary for the Democratic National Committee, where she handled press for the women’s, African American, labor, faith, college and youth communities. She got her start in legislative advocacy working for former Congressman Albert R. Wynn, her local representative. She served as a Communications Director for Congressman Wynn for four years and built relationships with Capitol Hill and Washington reporters. Smith is a graduate of American University and is originally from Silver Spring, Md. Her passion for social justice and women’s health comes from a mom who is a retired registered nurse and an eternal activist.
Amaya Smith
Vice President for Marketing and Communications
Llenda Jackson-Leslie
Llenda Jackson-Leslie is a senior communications specialist at the National Partnership for Women & Families, where she works to showcase reproductive health and health care issues.
Prior to her work at the National Partnership, Llenda was a senior communications associate at McKinney & Associates, where she led campaigns on transformative justice, gender justice and health equity. Previously, she served as director of legislative communications for the American Civil Liberties Union where she managed communications initiatives to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act.
A native Detroiter, Llenda served as communications director for Michigan’s largest trial court and marketing director for the Detroit Branch NAACP before moving to Washington, D.C.
Llenda Jackson-Leslie
Senior Communications Specialist, Health Justice
Gail Zuagar
Gail Zuagar is a senior communications specialist at the National Partnership for Women & Families, where she works to amplify the organization’s economic justice work to a range of audiences. Prior to joining the National Partnership, Gail developed a passion for combining communications with advocacy and outreach in previous roles at The Education Trust and the National Women’s Law Center.
Gail earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from Temple University and her master’s degree in public relations and corporate communications from Georgetown University. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and their children.
Gail Zuagar
Senior Communications Specialist, Economic Justice
For general inquiries, please email Emily Roe at eroe@nationalpartnership.org.
Press Statements
Trump Signs Harmful Bill That Will Deprive Millions of Health Care and Food Assistance
Today, President Trump signed the Republican budget bill that will undermine the health and economic security of millions of people who rely on essential programs like Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for health care coverage and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for food assistance.
Republican Budget Bill Will Harm Millions of Women and Families
The Senate has voted to advance a Republican Budget Bill that would undermine the health and economic security of 17 million people who rely on essential programs like Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for health care coverage.
Unpaid Caregiving in the U.S. Valued at More Than $1.1 Trillion, Per New Analysis
A new analysis from the National Partnership for Women & Families (NPWF) finds that if Americans who provide care to loved ones received a check for that work, it would be in the amount of more than $1.1 trillion.
Supreme Court Limits Medicaid Patients’ Right to Choose Their Health Care Provider
Today, in a new decision (Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic), the Supreme Court has made it harder for people in South Carolina with Medicaid coverage to choose their health care provider and limited their ability to challenge that restriction in court. The decision now opens the door for other states to exclude Planned Parenthood from their state Medicaid programs.
Three Years Post-Dobbs: Abortion Bans & Criminalization Threaten More than 15 Million Women of Color
Our analysis finds that more than 15 million women of color live in states where abortion is banned or under threat, or where there are bills to criminalize people for having an abortion. The analysis has been updated to reflect an Ohio proposal that was introduced last week.
News Coverage
4 Large Companies Top List For Best Paid Leave Policies In 2025 Index – Forbes
“Despite growing demand, 73% of U.S. workers still lack access to paid leave,” said Jesse Matton, Director of Corporate Social Impact Policies at NPWF, via email. “With the Leading on Leave report, we’re spotlighting companies that are turning policy into action—and showing that transparency and innovation are critical to both workforce equity and long-term business resilience.”
A caregiver dad, Bradley Cooper and how a national crisis inspired an unexpected film – USA Today
“Jocelyn Frye, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, is featured in the documentary. Caregiving issues, she said, ‘are not niche concerns.’
’The vast majority of families navigate these problems every day and it is important for people to see that they are part of a large community of people struggling to figure things out,’ Frye said.”
Lifestyle Black Maternal Health Week: How Insurance Gaps Are Putting Black Moms at Risk – BET
“Moreover, as Rolonda Donelson powerfully observed in a recent National Partnership for Women & Families blog post, it is problematic to cast abortion as a legally cognizable source of injury when ‘the truth is that those declines are much more likely caused by the states themselves… and their policy shortcomings.’ Thus, ‘characterizing abortion as a ‘harm’ to the state increases misogyny and refuses to hold states accountable for the failures they have caused by not providing social support to children and families already in existence.'”
Our Shared Experience of Being Under Attack – The Progressive Magazine
“This is visible in Trump’s policies, Sharita Gruberg, vice president for economic justice at the National Partnership for Women and Families (NPWF), explains to me. The Executive Order, she says, allows members of the Trump Administration ‘to review anything that has gender in it.’ The public face was the attack on trans people, but the implementation goes beyond, ‘trying to claw back gender equity projects and work and data.'”
‘Make Motherhood Great Again’: Pronatalism Finds a Comfortable Home in the Trump Administration – Ms. Magazine
“Moreover, as Rolonda Donelson powerfully observed in a recent National Partnership for Women & Families blog post, it is problematic to cast abortion as a legally cognizable source of injury when ‘the truth is that those declines are much more likely caused by the states themselves… and their policy shortcomings.’ Thus, ‘characterizing abortion as a ‘harm’ to the state increases misogyny and refuses to hold states accountable for the failures they have caused by not providing social support to children and families already in existence.'”
