CL22 - II-C7, Introductory-Level: Innovative Leaders Making A Powerful Difference: IECMH Emerging Leadership Awardees

Dr. Holly Hatton-Bowers, Ph.D., University of Nebraska-Lincoln, is an assistant professor in child, youth, and family studies at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln and an Early Childhood Extension Specialist. Her primary interests and scholarly activity include co-creating and implementing programs using iterative designs that aim to enhance the quality of early childhood development and care, with a particular focus on mental health, emotional well-being and social-emotional development. These programs include the use of strategies that cultivate reflective practice, resilience, mindfulness, and compassion among caregivers, helping professionals and families. She is committed to addressing issues of systemic inequities in early care and education and brings these issues to the forefront of her work. These programs have been implemented in early childhood programs across the state of Nebraska, and in several other locations across the country, as well as in Brazil, such that over 3,000 early childhood professionals have been trained in mindfulness and reflective techniques that decrease stress and enhance self-regulation to facilitate sensitive and responsive interactions with children. Currently, she is a Principal Investigator for an Administration Children and Families Head Start University Partnership Grant aiming to research the implementation of the Nebraska Extension Cultivating Healthy Intentional Mindful Educators program (CHIME) in Early Head Start and Head Start child care settings using community-based participatory methods. A portion of this work involves partnering with tribal communities to refine CHIME to respond to and align with native cultural understandings and practices. The CHIME program was also recently culturally adapted and translated into Spanish for bilingual and Spanish-speaking early childhood teachers. She serves on the IANR Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Advisory Group | Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources (unl.edu), the UNL Extension’s Reaching One, Reaching All, Cultural Competence | Nebraska (unl.edu) team, the ZERO TO THREE Mindfulness Advisory Committee, and co-leads the Nebraska Association for Infant Mental Health, Home : Nebraska Association for Infant Mental Health (neinfantmentalhealth.org) with Sami Bradley; advocating for child and family mental health.  

Erin Henderson Lacerdo is the Executive Director for the Association for Infant Mental Health in Hawaii. Erin began her career in facilitating parent participation programs within the prison system and moved into early childhood development as a specialization. Erin comes from a strong home visiting background, providing home visits in Parents as Teachers, Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters, Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up, and Child Parent Psychotherapy. For the last five years, Erin oversaw a statewide home visiting program operating under MIECHV funding. In her new role as Executive Director, Erin is currently working on building a system to credential Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Consultants, grow the supports around the prenatal-age 5 workforce, and embed infant mental health foundations in policies surrounding young children. Erin also serves on community and governmental boards, including the Hawaii State's Early Learning Board. She holds an MSW from Hawaii Pacific University and a BA from Gonzaga University.

Callan Wells leads GEEARS’ health policy work, specifically focusing on growing Georgia's infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) system of care. Callan serves on the exploratory board for the Georgia Association for Infant Mental Health: Birth to Five (GA-AIMH) and the IECMH task force convened by the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL), where she chairs the Workforce Development Workgroup. Additionally, she co-leads the Interagency Directors Team’s Prevention and Early Intervention Workgroup. In 2019, Callan worked with state leaders in the Georgia House of Representatives on the Infant-Toddler Social-Emotional Health Study Committee. 

Before joining GEEARS, Callan worked for Georgia Legal Services Program, where she ran a project helping rural Georgia families access health care and other supports. She earned her B.A. from Agnes Scott College , an M.S. in the Social Foundations of Education, and a graduate certificate in Public Health from Georgia State University.
Callan lives in Atlanta with her husband Nick and their cat Claude. 

Lynette Aytch is an early childhood professional committed to the healthy development, care, and education of young children, particularly those living in poverty, children of color, and children with disabilities. She is currently Director of the Leadership Development Institute at ZERO TO THREE. In this role she supports the ZERO TO THREE Fellowship Program and the Academy of ZERO TO THREE Fellows. Prior to ZERO TO THREE, Dr. Aytch was Director of Organizational Development at the North Carolina Partnership for Children (NCPC), where she provided primary leadership in the design, implementation, and evaluation of an organizational development initiative to strengthen executive leadership, governance, community engagement, and financial sustainability of the statewide network of Smart Start partnerships. This initiative was implemented in collaboration with a diverse team of local, state, and national nonprofit and early childhood leaders. Prior to NCPC, Dr. Aytch was Assistant Director of the National Center for Early Development and Learning (NCEDL), a 5-year, $14 million grant from the US Department of Education housed at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. In addition to administrative responsibilities, she was the lead researcher on a project focused on the quality of early intervention services for infants and toddler with disabilities. Prior to NCEDL, she worked as a School Psychologist in Camden, New Jersey focused predominately on children preschool to 3rd grade. In support of her own leadership development, Dr. Aytch has participated in several leadership programs including BRIDGES – Leadership for Women in the Academy, Leadership North Carolina, and the William C. Friday Fellowship in Human Relations. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Southern University and a Doctor of Psychology degree from Rutgers University in School Psychology. In her leisure, Lynette enjoys biking, yoga, gardening, and the arts, particularly contemporary dance and theater.