About Us and Our Educators

The UCSF Women's Health Resource Center was founded in 1982 as the Great Expectations Pregnancy Program, part of an Alternative Birth Center at Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco. This program offers women and their families the opportunity to learn more about their pregnancy and prepare for childbirth and parenting and continues to be an integral part of the current scope of our services.

In 1996, we began expanding to address women's health issues that cross the life span--from adolescence to menopause and beyond. This new focus culminated in the renaming of the program in October 1998, and it continues to direct our services today and for the future. We currently serve approximately 1,000 telephone and walk-in clients each month and continue to outreach to new community members.

UCSF Women's Health Resource Center is located on the first floor of the new UCSF Women's Health Center, a University designated eight story clinical building. This centralization of services enhances our ability to provide multi-disciplinary care to women. In February 2014, the Women’s Health Resource Center opened their second location, at the Mission Bay campus in the new UCSF Betty Irene Moore Women's Hospital. 

Our Goals

The UCSF Women's Health Resource Center strives to:Increase women's access to information about all aspects of their health.

• Provide excellence in the quality and variety of education available for women and their families.
• Encourage and create participatory, women-sensitive health education programming.
• Offer women a centralized resource for community and health care provider referrals specific to their needs.

Sarah Cardena, MPH, Health Educator

Sarah has been a health educator since 2010. She has taught, coordinated and implemented various health and promotion programs in the field of Maternal, Child and Adolescent health. Sarah holds a B.A in Sociology from UCLA and a Masters Degree in Public Health, focusing on Community Health Education from California State University, Long Beach. Now at UCSF and as a new mother herself, Sarah hopes to share her knowledge and skills by educating others about safe and healthy pregnancy, delivery, and post-natal care. Outside of work, Sarah enjoys spending time with her family, international travel, learning to cook and attending theater.

Juli Fraga, Psy.D., Psychologist and Group Facilitator 

Juli, Clinical Psychologist has taught classes for the Great Expectations Pregnancy Program since January 2013, she has facilitated courses such as the Afterglow and currently leads the New New from Partners to Parents sessions. Dr. Fraga is a licensed psychologist and has a private practice in San Francisco. In her spare time, she enjoys writing and creative endeavors.

Carole Hanson, Perinatal Educator, Lactation Consultant

Carole is a Board Certified Lactation Consultant and teaches classes especially for parents expecting twins, triplets, or more. She teaches at several Bay Area hospitals, leads monthly support groups for pregnant and new parents of multiples, and offers private classes to mothers on bed rest. Currently, she teaches our Great Expectations Breastfeeding Multiples class. Carole is an active member of community outreach groups who support low-income families with multiples. Her passion is to provide valuable information to parents, helping them to prepare for the arrival of two or more babies at once, and to have realistic expectations about the first several months at home. Carole’s Odyssey began in 2001 with the arrival of her twin boys. She is a former President of the Marin Parents of Multiples Club, and is a Certified Lactation Educator.

Cherry Jones, LMFT, CIMI

Cherry is a teacher, mother and Family Therapist. She has been a licensed Marriage Family Therapist since 1992 and she has been teaching Infant massage and new parenting classes since 2002. She was trained at the child trauma Institute of San Francisco in Assessment and Early Intervention. She worked as a supervisor for 4 years training mental health Interns. She especially enjoys working with parents and infants to enhance bonding and attachment and to encourage healthy development. Her greatest joy in life is her daughter and her work, helping the next generation grow up to be healthy adults with meaningful lives. Cherry is a certified mindfulness teacher and teaches the mindfulness class for expectant parents. In her private practice she specializes in supporting individuals and couples in the transition to becoming successful parents.

Patty Lipinska, Perinatal Educator

Patty, Certified Childbirth Educator, has taught classes for the Great Expectations Pregnancy Program since January 1997 including Childbirth Preparation, Birth Alternatives, Intensive Childbirth Preparation and Refresher Childbirth. Ms. Lipinska has been a childbirth educator since 1989 and has taught in many different facilities including the Native American Health Center, Berkeley High School and Kaiser Permanente. She has done labor support since 1986 in locations throughout the Bay Area. She is trained as doula and she has been to over 530 births, all over the Bay Area, many here at UCSF since 1986. In addition, she has three children of her own.

Sarah Quigley, Lactation Consultant, Perinatal Educator

Sarah has been an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant since 2017 and started working at UCSF in January 2018. She sees families in the outpatient lactation clinic. In the past, she and has facilitated the MILK Support group, taught breastfeeding and parenting classes at UCSF and volunteered as a La Leche League Leader, providing peer breastfeeding support. She believes that parents are the experts on their own babies, and her goal is to help parents tap into the instincts and knowledge that they already have to successfully feed and care for their babies. Sarah and her partner are the proud parents of two daughters. In her free time, she enjoys board games, word puzzles, historical fiction, cooking, and HIIT workouts.

Shanda Manion, Patient Health Educator

Shanda has been teaching parenting classes with UCSF’s Women’s Health Great Expectations Pregnancy Program since 2011. Shanda’s passion for education and medicine has inspired her extensive work in the health care field. She is a certified CPR Instructor for the American Heart Association and an ICEA certified Childbirth Educator currently teaching Childbirth Education classes at UCSF hospital through the Great Expectations Pregnancy program. She works full-time as an educator in the San Francisco Bay Area.