Nurturing the Early Childhood Workforce: Come Learn and Network with Researchers, Policymakers and Thought Leaders

Join us for a gathering of passionate researchers, policymakers, thought leaders and dedicated stakeholders united by a common goal: enhancing the well-being, recruitment and retention of early childhood professionals across all settings. This unique event features engaging presentations and dynamic facilitated discussions that explore the latest opportunities and developments impacting the early childhood workforce.

Don't miss this unique chance to network, collaborate and make a real difference in the future of early childhood education.

Speakers:

Angela Green

Angela Green serves as the Regional Administrator for the Administration for Children and Families’ Region 5 in Chicago, Illinois. In this capacity, she oversees the high-priority human services initiatives of the agency, administrative leadership and support for ACF’s Chicago staff and human service emergency planning, preparedness, and response. Green began her social work career in a youth-development setting for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Indianapolis. She went on to work for Children’s Bureau, Inc. and for the Department of Child Services where she served as the deputy director of practice support. Green is a Harvard Senior Executive Fellow with Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and holds a Master of Social Work degree from Indiana University. 

Mariana Souto-Manning, PhD

Mariana Souto-Manning is President of Erikson Institute. She served as Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University and held additional academic appointments at the University of Iceland and King’s College London. Committed to the pursuit of justice in early childhood teaching and teacher education, Souto-Manning’s research centers intersectionally-minoritized children, teachers and communities of Color. Souto-Manning has (co-)authored 12 books, dozens of book chapters and over 100 peer-reviewed articles. She has received several research awards, including the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Innovations in Research on Diversity in Teacher Education Award. In 2023, in honor of her exceptional contributions to, and excellence in, education research, Souto-Manning became an AERA Fellow. 

Moderator:

Teresa Ramos

Teresa is a mother, sister, wife and tía; a Polish-Mexican (Polexican) Latina who grew up in Logan Square and attended Chicago Public Schools. Teresa is currently the First Assistant Deputy Governor for Education for the Office of Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. Previously she served as Vice President of Public Policy, Research, and Advocacy at Illinois Action for Children. Teresa spent seven years at Advance Illinois, a statewide education advocacy organization promoting a strong public education system. There she built and managed the Funding Illinois’ Future coalition and campaign that changed the decades old-inequitable school funding formula. Since then, over $1 Billion in state funding has been equitable allocated to schools.

Prior to joining Advance Illinois Teresa was a community organizer for Organization of the NorthEast and managed the Grow Your Own teachers program.  In 2012 Teresa completed her Ph.D. in Anthropology with a minor in Latina/Latino studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Panelists:

Juliet Bromer

Juliet Bromer, PhD, Research Professor, is a nationally-recognized expert on home-based child care (HBCC) and has conducted seminal research on the supply, quality, and support of HBCC providers that has influenced public policy and program implementation across the U.S. Bromer has a long history of collaborating with and advising federal childcare and early education initiatives as well as state and community partners around HBCC research and evaluation and translating research into policy and practice. Current foundation- and government-funded projects include research on quality in family, friend and neighbor care, nontraditional hour child care quality and working conditions, and state PreK systems and local infrastructure support for the home-based child care workforce. Bromer received her M.S. in Early Childhood Education from Bank Street College of Education and her Ph.D. in Human Development from the University of Chicago.

LaTonya Jones

LaTonya Jones has more than 25 years of experience in the early childhood education field. She has been the Site Director at the Carole Robertson Center’s North Lawndale center, one of the Center’s three flagship sites, since 2021. As director, she strives to create a safe and empowering learning environment and make a positive impact in the lives of children and staff alike. Prior to becoming site director, LaTonya served as Assistant Site Director and as an infant/toddler teacher.

Teaching has been LaTonya’s lifelong passion, but it was only through the support of the Carole Robertson Center that she was finally able to realize her ambition. After finding the Center as a parent seeking quality child care for her young children, LaTonya earned her CDA certification, followed by her Associate’s degree, BA, and finally her MA in Education – all while working at the Center. Inspired by their mother, LaTonya's two daughters have followed in her footsteps, one as a youth development mentor at the Center and the other as a Pre-K teacher.

Catherine Main

Catherine Main is a senior lecturer and Director of Early Childhood Education in the College of Education at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Her work at has included innovative and responsive program development and coordination.  Main designed and developed a Blended EC/ECSE and an EC Alternative Licensure program. Currently she is also the PI on a DOE Teacher Quality Partnership grant and leading the Illinois Early Childhood Apprenticeship Pilot project in partnership with the Illinois Department of Human Service. Main regularly presents her work at national conferences and as an invited speaker at local conferences. She is the past- President of the Illinois Association for Early Childhood Teacher Educators and a member of the board for Chicago Youth Centers. 

Bela Moté

Bela Moté, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Carole Robertson Center for Learning, has spent her career supporting early childhood and youth development at the local, national and international levels through programs, partnerships and policy development. She is committed to providing high-quality, deeply impactful programs for children, youth and families whose communities have seen systemic divestment and historical inequities. Before joining the Carole Robertson Center for Learning in 2018, Bela held leadership positions at the YMCA of the USA, Start Early, and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation. Bela holds a Master of Education from Erikson Institute. She began her career in early childhood education as a Montessori preschool teacher and considers that experience to be her North Star.  

Bela serves on many local and statewide committees and councils to advance early childhood education and youth development. In 2023, Bela was appointed by Illinois Governor Pritzker to chair the transition advisory committee for a new unified state agency dedicated to early childhood care and education. 

Sandra Lucia Osorio, Ph.D.

Sandra Lucia Osorio was born in Chicago to two immigrant parents from Colombia, South America. Her trajectory was greatly impacted by her own schooling experiences. She was often labeled in a deficit way because her multicultural and multilingual background was seen as a problem that needed to be solved rather than an asset to be recognized and built upon.

This experience and many others like it impassioned Sandra to pursue working with multilingual students as an educator for over ten years. After being in the classroom, she transitioned to higher education to make a bigger impact and support teachers in learning how to best support students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

In 2022, Dr. Osorio became an Associate Professor in Raciolinguistic Justice and Director of Teacher Education at Erikson.  She was promoted to full Professor in 2024. She directs the Triple Endorsement Certification (early childhood, bilingual/ESL and Special Education) program.