Emily Talley is a Certified Lactation Counselor and Clinical Fellow Speech Language Pathologist living in Blowing Rock, NC. She established Nourish Appalachia as a gathering of people, resources, and information to support babies and their families during a critical period of life. Emily practices as an SLP in Watauga County providing infant feeding and early language evaluations and therapy through Appalachian Pediatric Therapy. She also offers lactation counseling services.

“I decided to retrain as an SLP focusing on the 0-3 population after having spent over a decade in the relief and development sector designing and managing programs that supported families in crisis. The research and my experience showed me over and again how critical those early years, weeks, days are for shaping an individual and ultimately influencing a society. I was and am convinced that support networks for babies and their parents are of utmost importance. I wanted to facilitate that network. Be that support.

“And so I began the experiment of Nourish Appalachia. On the one hand, it is a simple effort to gather information in one place and point people to my own lactation counseling and infant feeding services. But hopefully it is more than that. Hopefully this initiative facilitates coordination among the many people working to improve infant feeding outcomes in the high country, spurring conversation, empowering parents and practitioners. Nurturing Appalachia.”