Erin has always thought she could make the world better than she found it. It’s a belief that she picked up from her mom, a firefighter and paramedic who recently passed away. “My mother was one of those people who loved everyone around her,” Erin says. And she has taken her mother’s example to her work as executive director and CEO of the Children’s Forum in Tallahassee, FL. “When I go to meetings, people always ask me why I care so much about my work, and I always tell them that I feel every child belongs to me. I’m convinced that children should have every chance to succeed, regardless of where they’re born or what roadblocks they face. And I picked up my sense of conviction from my mom, though I’m in a completely different field.”
And It’s not the field that Erin planned to enter when she was preparing for a career at college. “At first, I wanted to go to chiropractic school, so I could make a ton of money and stand on my own two feet,” she recalls. Then she changed course after chatting with her roommate, who was studying early childhood development as a major. “It sounded awesome, and I decided to major in it for fun since I had already been admitted to chiropractic school. And after my first class, I called my mom and told her I had fallen in love with ECE. This is where my heart was and this was where I belonged, as I said over the phone. That was 20 years ago, and I’ve never looked back.”
Instead, she quickly shot ahead in the ECE field, thanks to the director of Beginning Steps Ministry Preschool where she started her career as an infant teacher. “I was young and straight out of college,” Erin says. “But that director saw something in me and pulled me up to be a leader much faster than people would have expected. And watching her empower children also empowered me to believe I could be anything I wanted. I came to believe I really could change the world for young children though I wasn’t a 30-year veteran in the early childhood field,” Erin recalls. And she did change the world for one small boy after rising through the ranks to become director of the preschool.
“Lane was a four-year-old whose dad was serving in the army in Afghanistan and whose mom was sent to prison,” Erin recalls. “He responded to all that change in his life by becoming very aggressive and withdrawn. We tried everything we could to help him, but after a while we realized the problem was that he simply missed his mom. So, we got a doll with a built-in voice recorder and had the mom call us from prison. We recorded her voice as she said, ‘I love you, Lane. Everything’s going to be okay. Mommy loves you so much.’ And every day at nap time, he would listen to his mother’s voice while I held him rocked him and let him play with my hair. That’s how he went to sleep and within about three to four weeks, he started to calm down and we had our old Lane back by the time he left our program.”
Lane is in middle school now, so much has changed for him. Much has also changed for Erin as she took steps to serve her field so it could better serve young children. Erin advocated for her cause as president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Education of Young Children and as the public policy rep for the Florida Association for the Education of Young Children. Then she found a more prominent pulpit from which to preach her message by joining the Florida Department of Education.
During her five years with the department, she managed all the statewide quality efforts funded by the School Readiness program and headed numerous multimillion-dollar projects aimed at building an integrated early childhood system that put Florida’s youngest children first. Her priorities included initiatives in professional development, infant/toddler quality, preschool quality, inclusion, and continuous quality improvement. “So, I became the person who helped write the laws for ECE, provided technical assistance and helped build systems statewide,” Erin explains.
She brought her expertise to the local level as executive director of the Association of Early Learning Coalitions. “I worked on implementation of ECE systems in the context of different communities statewide,” she says. “I examined what the state laws meant for Miami, Pensacola or the Keys, to name a few. I represented local interests by serving as a subject matter expert before state lawmakers to ensure the laws they passed made sense in terms of what our field actually needed. My main goal was for teachers to show that they knew how to interact with young children, so I also gave a lot of presentations and did a lot of training,” Erin explains.
“For example, one of the teachers I worked with was having trouble helping infants calm down,” Erin recalls, “So I showed her how to help children relax by having them take deep breaths, an exercise we call downloading calm. It’s a way of saying you’re safe, you’re okay. And it was beautiful to see how well she learned to help the babies stop crying and calm down, a technique she took from the classroom into her own life with a daughter who suffered from anxiety attacks. I was amazed to learn how she was able to wrap her arms around her daughter and breathe her daughter into a better state of mind,” Erin explains.
“I’ve had the privilege of seeing beautiful things like this and meeting wonderful people who are committed to helping others. In the course of my career, I’ve seen how everyone from the teachers to the directors genuinely want to do right by young children,” Erin says. “Watching them has made me intent to increase investment in the field and break down the roadblocks that stop us from putting young children first.”
So, Erin is strongly committed to working on behalf of our early childhood teachers and making their voices heard. And her own experience has convinced her that teachers do have the power to make an impact. “One of the things I realized when I went to work for the state was that my voice as a teacher was more forceful than it was after I went into administration. So, every time I go speak with teachers, I try to help them understand the advocacy process and how it works. I can advocate for our field all day long, but I can’t compete with a thousand teachers standing up and speaking out for what they need.”
And Erin has been stirring more teachers to speak out in recent months since she now has a job that gives her a broader national platform. “In July, I became president and CEO of the Children’s Forum, a national group of different early learning projects that do a lot of workforce initiatives for teachers. I’m now in a place where I can offer expertise to any state that is making some kind of quality improvement effort. We’re especially concerned with recruitment, retention and credentialing, all the things we need to make our early childhood workforce even better.”
Erin wants to make sure teachers are prepared before they enter the classroom, so she’s a big supporter of the Child Development Associate® (CDA) Credential™ and even helped write a law that required one teacher in every Florida classroom to have a CDA®. “There’s a level of confidence and quality assurance that comes when a teacher walks in the door with the credential and that’s something our children deserve. So, in my new role, I will be operating the T.E.A.C.H. scholarship, which pays for them to get the credential,” Erin says. But she doesn’t want teachers to stop with the CDA, so she’s looking at professional development pathways that don’t involve the time, trouble and tremendous expense of earning a college degree.
She also wants to open more doors for teachers to broaden their career horizons, she explains. “Our field is huge, and when we’re recruiting for the profession, we need to do a better job of showing people that they have options besides being an early childhood teacher or director. Sure, these are positions that make a big impact, but some people, and I’m one of them, might not want to spend the rest of their lives in the classroom. So, we need to get the message across that there are many other options, like trainers, curriculum specialists and coaches.”
They might even think about becoming an administrator and advocate like Erin. And as she looks back on her wide range of experience in ECE, she sees a pattern. “I’ve had several different jobs and been extremely happy in all of them,” she says. And what she enjoys most about the early childhood field is the chance to make the next generation better. “I love that we reach children when they’re still a blank slate and we can help them believe in their promise and potential. That’s what’s driven me to take on different roles in the profession,” she explains “My North Star has always been going to where I can do the greatest good for the greatest number of young children.”
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Vice President of People and Culture
Janie Payne is the Vice President of People and Culture for the Council for Professional Recognition. Janie is responsible for envisioning, developing, and executing initiatives that strategically manage talent and culture to align people strategies with the overarching business vision of the Council. Janie is responsible for driving organizational excellence through strategic talent practices, orchestrating workforce planning, talent acquisition, performance management as well as a myriad of other Human Resources Programs. She is accountable for driving effectiveness by shaping organizational structure for optimal efficiency. Janie oversees strategies that foster a healthy culture to include embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion into all aspects of the organization.
In Janie’s prior role, she was the Vice President of Administration at Equal Justice Works, where she was responsible for leading human resources, financial operations, facilities management, and information technology. She was also accountable for developing and implementing Equal Justice Works Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion strategy focused on attracting diverse, mission-oriented talent and creating an inclusive and equitable workplace environment. With more than fifteen years of private, federal, and not-for-profit experience, Janie is known for her intuitive skill in administration management, human resources management, designing and leading complex system change, diversity and inclusion, and social justice reform efforts.
Before joining Equal Justice Works, Janie was the Vice President of Human Resources and Chief Diversity Officer for Global Communities, where she was responsible for the design, implementation, and management of integrated HR and diversity strategies. Her work impacted employees in over twenty-two countries. She was responsible for the effective management of different cultural, legal, regulatory, and economic systems for both domestic and international employees. Prior to Global Communities, Janie enjoyed a ten-year career with the federal government. As a member of the Senior Executive Service, she held key strategic human resources positions with multiple cabinet-level agencies and served as an advisor and senior coach to leaders across the federal sector. In these roles, she received recognition from management, industry publications, peers, and staff for driving the creation and execution of programs that created an engaged and productive workforce.
Janie began her career with Verizon Communications (formerly Bell Atlantic), where she held numerous roles of increasing responsibility, where she directed a diversity program that resulted in significant improvement in diversity profile measures. Janie was also a faculty member for the company’s Black Managers Workshop, a training program designed to provide managers of color with the skills needed to overcome barriers to their success that were encountered because of race. She initiated a company-wide effort to establish team-based systems and structures to impact corporate bottom line results which was recognized by the Department of Labor. Janie was one of the first African American women to be featured on the cover of Human Resources Executive magazine.
Janie received her M.A. in Organization Development from American University. She holds numerous professional development certificates in Human Capital Management and Change Management, including a Diversity and Inclusion in Human Resources certificate from Cornell University. She completed the year-long Maryland Equity and Inclusion Leadership Program sponsored by The Schaefer Center for Public Policy and The Maryland Commission on Civil Rights. She is a trained mediator and Certified Professional Coach. She is a graduate of Leadership America, former board chair of the NTL Institute and currently co-steward of the organization’s social justice community of practice, and a member of The Society for Human Resource Management. Additionally, Janie is the Board Chairperson for the Special Education Citizens Advisory Council for Prince Georges County where she is active in developing partnerships that facilitate discussion between parents, families, educators, community leaders, and the PG County school administration to enhance services for students with disabilities which is her passion. She and her husband Randolph reside in Fort Washington Maryland.
Chief Operations Officer
Andrew Davis serves as Chief Operating Officer at the Council. In this role, Andrew oversees the Programs Division, which includes the following operational functions: credentialing, growth and business development, marketing and communications, public policy and advocacy, research, innovation, and customer relations.
Andrew has over 20 years of experience in the early care and education field. Most recently, Andrew served as Senior Vice President of Partnership and Engagement with Acelero Learning and Shine Early Learning, where he led the expansion of state and community-based partnerships to produce more equitable systems of service delivery, improved programmatic quality, and greater outcomes for communities, children and families. Prior to that, he served as Director of Early Learning at Follett School Solutions.
Andrew earned his MBA from the University of Baltimore and Towson University and his bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland – University College.
Chief Financial Officer
Jan Bigelow serves as Chief Financial Officer at the Council and has been with the organization since February of 2022.
Jan has more than 30 years in accounting and finance experience, including public accounting, for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. She has held management-level positions with BDO Seidman, Kiplinger Washington Editors, Pew Center for Global Climate Change, Communities In Schools, B’nai B’rith Youth Organization and American Humane. Since 2003, Jan has worked exclusively in the non-profit sector where she has been a passionate advocate in improving business operations in order to further the mission of her employers.
Jan holds a CPA from the State of Virginia and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Lycoming College. She resides in Alexandria VA with her husband and dog.
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