Leadership

Steven Merahn, MD FAAP
Founder and Child Executive Officer

We are just getting started.

Citizenship For Children (C4C) is a new non-profit organization being organized by Steven Merahn, MD, a physician-executive with more than 25 years experience in the public and private sector as a physician, program director and general manager.

Trained as as pediatrician in New York City, Dr. Merahn spent the early part of his career with the New York City Department of Health, where he shaped policy and developed programs for early childhood, infant care and school health, maternal-child health and children with special needs and was part of the core team to lead the implementation of the New York State 0-3 Early Intervention Program. After leaving government, he founded Community Pediatrics, a policy and program development consultancy focused on children and families with special needs, and worked in children’s media.

Subsequently, Dr. Merahn has had a diverse career spanning healthcare communications, publishing and healthcare information services, IT software and digital media, hospital and integrated delivery networks, health plans, accountable care and systems-based care delivery.

A recognized thought leader in healthcare quality and performance improvement, population health and systems-based practice, Dr. Merahn more recent experience includes serving as Chief Medical Officer for Centria Healthcare, a national provider of autism services to children and families, and US Medical Management, a 14-state 42-office primary care network and accountable care organization delivering care to complex/fragile patients in their home. A Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), where he is a member of the AAP Council on Children with Disabilities and the AAP Section on Home Care. He also completed additional training in Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Philadelphia and is a member of the Society for Research in Child Development.

Dr. Merahn has special interests in helping children have the best developmental experience possible as they grow up, especially through the integration of behavioral health, general pediatrics and the educational system and in supporting the needs of medically complex children and their families. He is a graduate of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, NY.

"When I was in elementary school, citizenship education was a integral part of the curriculum. I learned without question that the strength of our community was based on how we treated each other. The classroom program was quite clear that I should not just expect to get what I needed from society, but also that my success as an individual was dependent upon the success of our society and it was my responsibility to consider, and shape my behavior around, the needs of others. These lessons got equal weight to the didactic curriculum. Every Friday we had an assembly where a child was honored as the “citizen of the week”; I wanted that award more than any grade on a test, and in the end those experiences were as important in shaping my adult values as were the 3R’s".

Steven Merahn, MD
Founder
Citizenship For Children

WELCOME LINDA SELIGSON TO THE C4C BOARD


Linda is an experienced senior development executive, currently the Director of Corporate and Foundation Support at JCCA (Jewish Child Care Association), who has more than 20 years experience with corporate and foundation relations, business development grants administration, strategic planning and program management. Her professional roots began in child health program management in the New York City Department of Health, where worked on infant mortality prevention initiatives and served as the Deputy Assistant Commissioner for Communicare, the city’s efforts to expand access to primary care services.