How Nikki Brooker Built the Village Every Mother Deserves

The leading cause of death among mothers in the year after childbirth is not hemorrhaging or complications from delivery. It is mental-health related causes, including suicide. That reality sits quietly behind conversations about maternal health, rarely spoken about directly and almost never addressed with urgency.  For Nikki Brooker, a former educator turned nonprofit founder based in Colorado, it is the truth that changed the direction of her life and the lives of more than 5,400 mothers in 26 months. 

Brooker is the founder of YANA, which stands for You Are Not Alone, an organization built on the idea that motherhood should never be a solo experience. What started in 2017 as a support group has grown into a comprehensive maternal wellness program now operating inside hospital systems, reaching mothers at the most vulnerable moment of their lives and staying with them for an entire year after they give birth. 

A Classroom, A Child, A Question 

The origin of YANA cannot be separated from tragedy. In 2017, two Colorado mothers took their own lives and the lives of their children. Brooker found herself connected to both situations in ways that were impossible to ignore. The morning after one of the incidents, she was working inside the school where the deceased children had been enrolled. A fifth-grade boy walked into his classroom sobbing. When she asked what was wrong, he told her that the boy who had been murdered was his reading buddy. Then he looked at her and asked a question she has never forgotten: how do I know my mom is not going to kill me tonight? 

"That changed me in so many ways," Brooker says. "The ripple effect of that mother's actions will change these people's lives forever." She made a decision in that moment. She was not going to wait for someone else to fix it. 

What America Gets Wrong About New Mothers 

One of the most striking things about Brooker's work is how clearly she can articulate the gap between how the United States treats new mothers compared to the rest of the world. In Canada, a doula is sent to your home to help after delivery. In several European countries, pelvic floor physical therapy is automatic after giving birth, the same way physical therapy is automatic after a knee replacement or shoulder surgery in America. In Singapore, healthcare providers come to the mother's home because the expectation is that a woman who just gave birth should not be getting in her car to drive to a clinic. 

"Here, we just shove them out the door and say good luck," Brooker says. She is not being dramatic. The cost of giving birth in the United States can range from around $15,000 to over $40,000, with some cases climbing much higher depending on complications. And yet, emotional support for a mother in that same year can cost as little as $60. YANA’s program provides a full year of support for sixty dollars. Sixty dollars. 

Strong Mamas, Thriving Babies 

The program Brooker launched on January 30, 2024, is called Strong Mamas Thriving Babies. It operates inside hospital systems and offers every mother who delivers a live baby a full year of wraparound support, completely free of charge. It does not matter how old the baby is, what number pregnancy it is, what a mother's financial situation looks like, or what her background is. Every mother is offered the program, face-to-face, right in her hospital room. 

The program works across three areas. First, mothers are enrolled in a private app called Strong Mamas where they can connect with one another, plan playdates, join discussion rooms, and access a calendar of events. It is a safe, moderated digital space designed specifically for the mothers in the program. Second, in-person weekly gatherings are held at each participating hospital, giving mothers a physical community. Community experts regularly speak on topics like infant sleep, pelvic health, and mental wellness, and the gatherings are designed not just to surface problems but to offer real solutions. Third, volunteer mothers call enrolled moms at three, six, nine, and twelve months postpartum to check in. The calls are not clinical. They are mom-to-mom, which is the whole point. 

"We know that moms will talk to moms," Brooker explains. "Moms will lie through their teeth to anyone who is a mandated reporter because they are afraid somebody is going to take their kids away." The peer-led model removes that fear. It creates a space where intrusive thoughts can be named, where exhaustion is not seen as failure, and where asking for help is treated as the strength it actually is. 

In its first year, the program expanded to three hospitals across the county and enrolled over 2,200 mothers. In 26 months, that number has grown to more than 5,400. The acceptance rate when YANA staff walk into a hospital room and offer the program is 96 percent. The engagement rate among enrolled mothers sits above 70 percent. Those are not numbers you see in programs that feel optional or surface level. Those are numbers that reflect something mothers have been waiting for.  

Five and a Half Years Before a Paycheck 

Brooker did not arrive at this success quickly or easily. She spent over twenty years in education, teaching everyone from toddlers to university students, serving as an assistant principal, and building deep expertise in how people learn and grow. When she decided to start YANA, she knew how to build community and how to show up for people. The business side of running a nonprofit was a different story entirely. 

In the very beginning, things moved quickly. Within two weeks of sharing her idea on Facebook, she had a place to meet and an unexpected opportunity. Standing in front of 150 people at a gym opening, Brooker admitted she had no idea what she was doing, but she knew something had to change. After she spoke, a woman named Julie Roberts walked up to her with a solution. She had been holding onto a dormant nonprofit for years, waiting for the right person to continue the work. That night, Brooker was handed a 501(c)(3) and $1,500 to get started. 

But early momentum did not translate into long-term funding. Her husband supported the organization financially for five and a half years before YANA received its first significant outside funding. Every nonprofit leader she spoke with in those early days told her to expect that timeline. She did not fully believe them at first, but it proved to be true.

What kept her going during those years was a combination of refusal to give up, constant networking, and a willingness to plant seeds without knowing where they would lead. She showed up again and again, building relationships one conversation at a time. 

"I network until I am blue in the face," Brooker says. "I go to more coffees and lunches and happy hours than you can count. And that is how we got known, how we got funded, how we got in the door." 

What Comes Next 

YANA is expanding across Colorado, with conversations already underway with hospital systems across the country. Brooker's longer vision is a nationwide program where every mother who gives birth in America has access to the kind of support that, in so many other countries, is simply assumed to be part of the process. 

For now, her message to mothers is simple: ask for help. Find your people. Understand that those people will change as your life changes, and that is not a loss but a natural part of growth. Pivoting, she says, is probably the most important skill a mother can develop, whether that means changing how you feed your baby, finding a different community, or simply being willing to pick up the phone when someone calls to ask how you are doing. 

"When mama ain't happy, nobody's happy," Brooker says. "But what if we actually supported every mom? What if every mom got what she deserved after giving birth to a human life? Imagine what we could do." 

To learn more or to volunteer, visit yanamom.com. 

Quote: "If we support the people who create the people, all the people win." Nikki Brooker