Mary Lee Allen

As the Director of the Child Welfare and Mental Health Division at the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) Ms. Allen works to improve policies and practices to better support families, prevent family crises from occurring or intensifying and to promote permanent families for children. She has played a leadership role in the development, passage, and implementation of major child welfare and children's mental health reforms over the past two decades.

Juanita E. Blount-Clark

Ms. Blount-Clark is the former Division for the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services. She served as executive director of the Georgia Policy Council for the Children and Families from July 1992 - December 1999. Preveiously, she served as the director of both the Office of Human Resource Development and Personnel and the Office of Minority Health in the Georgia Division of Public Health.

Dwayne A. Crompton

Dwayne Crompton has spent the last 23 years directing the KCMC Child Development Corporation. Under his leadership, the organization has grown to include the administration of: Project Head Start in Jackson, Clay and Platte counties; federal Child and Adult Care Food Program in 20 western Missouri counties; a model Central City child day-care center serving 150 children; a private-public sector child-care partnership called Full Start and the Thomas/Roque Building, a state-of-the- art family and child development resource center, located at 51st and Cleveland. Mr. Crompton also sits on a number of national and local boards concerned wit early childhood education.

Carl J. Dunst, PhD

Dr. Dunst is the director and founder of the Oralena Hawks Puckett Institute at Morgan State University in Morganton, North Carolina and the principal research scientist for the Family, Infant, and Preschool Program. FIPP serves families throughout western North Carolina with a variety of early education and family support programs. Dr. Dunst serves on the editorial board of the International Society on Early Intervention. He has been a creative and prolific researcher and author in the arena of family support, early childhood intervention, and services for children with disabilities and their families.

Deborah J. Hampton, M.Ed.

Ms. Hampton is the Executive Director of the Ecumenical Child Care Network, a national organization that provides support and technical assistance to faith based organizations with early care and education programs. She is also an Adjunct Faculty member at Erikson Institute where she teaches Early Childhood Education Administration. Ms. Hampton works to develop leadership in early childhood programs, having authored a leadership curriculum, participating in "Taking the Lead" a national leadership development program, and sitting on a number of boards for both the National and Chicago Associations for the Education of Young Children.

Jane Knitzer, Ed.D

Dr. Knitzer is the Acting Director of the National Center for Children in Poverty at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University. She is a psychologist whose career has been spent in policy research and analysis of issues affecting children and families. She has been on the faculty at Cornell University, New York University and Bank Street College for Education. She is the author of the initial Map and Track reports that track state-by-state policies and practices affecting children and families, as well as several issue briefs in NCCP's Children and Welfare Reform series. She now directs an initiative to link school readiness and improved emotional supports to the most vulnerable young children and families.

Joan Lombardi

Ms. Lombardi served as the first Associate Commissioner of the Child Care Bureau in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where she was responsible for the direction and leadership of the nation's child care assistance program. She currently serves as an advisor to a number of national organizations and foundations and as director of The Children's Project. Her 2003 book, Time to Care: Redesigning Child Care to Promote Education, Support Families, and Build Communities offers recommendations for national action for promoting the well being of children and families.

M-A Lucas

M-A Lucas, the founding Director of the United States Army Child and Youth Programs, manages the largest employer sponsored child care program in the country serving more than 183, 000 children ages 4 weeks to 12 years each year at 127 locations around the world. Military Child Care Programs have been cited by the White House and Congress as a " model for the nation", and most recently by the National Women's Law Center report entitled " Be All That We Can Be...Lessons From the Military for Improving our Nation's Child Care System.

Tammy L. Mann, PhD

Dr. Tammy Mann serves as Director of the Early Head Start National Resource Center at ZERO TO THREE. The EHS NRC is responsible for providing training and technical assistance at the national level to support EHS and Migrant Head Start programs. She has been with the Resource Center since its inception in 1995. She has also served as adjunct faculty at Howard University in the Department of Human Development and Psychoeducational Studies and as a Public Policy Fellow at the American Psychological Association where she focused on child and family policy issues. Her most recent paper: The impact of values on parenting: Reflections in a scientific age, examined the role that values play in shaping childrearing practices.

Patricia Montoya R.N., MPA

Ms. Montoya is currently New Mexico Secretary for Health Services. She was the Commissioner in the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF) under the Clinton Administration. There she was responsible for a budget of $13.5 billion, a staff of 200 people and had program oversight in four program areas which included Head Start, child care, child welfare (including child abuse and neglect, foster care and adoption) and runaway and homeless youth.

Susan Phillips

Ms. Phillips is Executive Director of the Georgia Children's Trust Fund Commission. The Commission administers state and federal funds for child abuse and neglect prevention and family resource programs throughout the state and manages appropriations for the state network of Children's Advocacy Centers, Prevent Child Abuse Georgia, and the Preschool Children with Special Needs grant program. Prior to her job with the Commission, she worked for the Council of Juvenile Court Judges' Permanent Homes for Children Program. She also sits on a number of boards at the local, state and national level, including the National Alliance of Children's Trust and Prevention Funds.