AC21 - Baby Talk Sessions 10-12

Natalece Washington, JD, CWLS, joined the NACC team in January 2021 as Policy Counsel. Natalece most recently served as Policy Administrator with the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services where she developed and enhanced child welfare policies to ensure their continued alignment with federal and state laws, organizational changes, and shifts in best practice. Prior to joining the Division, Natalece held the role of Director of Operations for Fulton County CASA, Inc. where she focused on strengthening volunteer advocacy, establishing an in-service training program, and heightening staff development requirements. Additionally, she increased awareness of child welfare issues in the Atlanta community through her participation in community events, television and radio interviews, and panel discussions. Before joining Fulton CASA, Natalece provided legal representation and ongoing holistic advocacy for dependent children as a Senior Child Advocate Attorney at the DeKalb County Child Advocacy Center in DeKalb County, Georgia. In her free time, Natalece enjoys hiking trails, reading novels, and attending weekend brunch with friends.

Madeleine Thakur is president of The Children's Movement of Florida. She firmly believes in promoting a strong start for all children and in ensuring robust supports for families with young children. She oversees all of The Movement's outreach and communications efforts, including the business engagement initiative Bosses for Babies, and leads state-level policy efforts aimed at increasing investment in high-quality early learning, health care for children, and parent support. Madeleine serves on the steering committee for the Florida Chamber's Business Alliance for Early Learning, the state advisory board for the Florida Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems (ECCS) impact project, and the leadership table for Orange County's "Becoming a K-Ready Community" initiative. She chairs the Florida Early Learning Consortium, whose members represent parents, small business owners and nonprofit child care operators, early childhood funders, and the early childhood workforce and focus on legislative advocacy. A Miami native and one of five children, Madeleine was raised trilingual (English, Spanish, French) and is a proud graduate of Miami-Dade County Public Schools. She holds a B.A. in International Studies from the University of Chicago and a diploma from Sciences Po in Paris. A strong supporter of opportunities for youth, she served for two years as a counselor for an after-school program on Chicago's South Side and spent one year as a teacher's assistant in the English-as-a-Second-Language classroom of a Chicago elementary school. When she returned to Miami, Madeleine was a volunteer tutor at the Overtown Youth Center for several years. Before joining The Movement in September 2017, she spent nearly a decade focused on economic and social development in Latin America and the Caribbean, working closely with senior executives in the legal, tech, consumer goods, and financial sectors. She and her husband, Mike, live in Miami with their two young sons.

Lynanne Gutierrez supports Groundwork Ohio's statewide effort to advance quality early care and education by increasing the quality of and access to evidencebased interventions that support the healthy development of young children and position them for lifelong success. A dedicated child advocate, Lynanne leads the development and implementation of Groundwork's policy agenda, priorities and strategies through effective communication, advocacy, research and data analysis. Lynanne manages the Groundwork Ohio policy team and key policy initiatives supported by state and national partnerships and coalitions. She also provides targeted development and operational support for the organization. Lynanne leads the Ohio Early Childhood Race and Rural Equity project, Groundwork's ongoing commitment to eliminate racial disparities in Ohio's early childhood system supported by a half a million-dollar data and communications project from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to inform Ohio early childhood systems building and policy. As part of this work, the Ohio Early Childhood Race and Rural Equity Report, the most comprehensive early childhood report in Ohio history, was released in July of 2018. The Report takes a detailed look at statewide and regional disaggregated data analyzing twenty-six metrics spanning five state agencies from prenatal care to postsecondary attainment over the course of a child's life to examine the powerful role race, rural geography and socioeconomic status play in determining a child's education and health outcomes and their opportunity to access evidence based interventions that close gaps where they begin in the first five years of life. Lynanne previously worked as a Policy Associate for Voices for Ohio Children, providing targeted leadership, programming and advocacy in the areas of early care and education, grade level reading, health care access and coverage, child welfare, out-of-school programming, and nutrition and wellness. In this role, she also managed the Ohio Children's Oral Health Action Team. Prior to her advocacy work at Voices, Lynanne was in private law practice for five years. She specialized in child and family law, serving some of central Ohio's most vulnerable children and families. Lynanne often represented children as a Guardian ad Litem in private custody matters and in cases where the child was abused or neglected and children services was involved. She worked with children, their families, school administration and teachers, special education personnel, child care providers, mental health practitioners and pediatricians to complete required investigations and provide recommendations to the court as to custody and care of the child. Lynanne's passion and unique commitment to vulnerable families accessing the legal system was recognized by her peers in the legal community as a "Rising Star" recipient by the Columbus Bar Foundation in 2013. Before becoming an attorney, Lynanne served as a Senior Legislative Aide in the Ohio Senate where her member's work focused on policy development promoting equity in health, human services, education, housing, criminal justice and economic development. Lynanne has a B.A. from The Ohio State University and a Juris Doctorate from Capital Law School. She is licensed to practice law in the state of Ohio and before the U.S. District Court, Southern District of Ohio. Lynanne also currently serves as a board member for The Columbus Academy Alumni Board. Lynanne lives in Columbus, Ohio with her husband and her baby boy who is the preeminent early childhood expert of her household.