What does it take to be a home visitor? You need to be able to build bonds of trust with parents. You need to have the skills to work with both the parents and their children. You need to respect the cultures and traditions of the families you serve. You need to know how to take advantage of their strengths. And you need to have knowledge of health, nutrition and education—so it’s a lot to ask of one person.
“Home visiting is like a one-stop shop,” says Gisela Hurtado, a senior manager in the Office of Early Learning at the United Planning Organization in Washington, DC. UPO’s goal is to change life for the low-income residents of the District, and Gisela embraces that mission with a passion. “I’m constantly looking to learn more,” she says, “and find ways to support families better. I want to give them the best of me.”
Her program serves a diverse range of people: Black, Mexican—and especially Central American families who have come here searching for a better life. Some of these families have fled gang violence and left everything behind. Others are political refugees. Many have been through trauma, or one of the parents may have been deported due to issues with immigration. Whatever their background might be, the families tend to feel a sense of isolation since they don’t have a strong circle of support.
Gisela knows how they feel because she came to the U.S. as an immigrant about 15 years ago. She was a teacher in her native Peru but didn’t speak English well enough to work in her field after arriving in this nation. “The first year I was here I worked in a restaurant,” she recalls “as I grappled with the challenges of adapting to a new country, a new language and a new culture. I had no friends or family, and I felt alone, like the immigrant families that I now serve.”
But Gisela didn’t give up since she’s an achiever by nature. “While taking ESL classes,” she says, “I got to know the people in the community and began asking them how I could continue in the field of education. That’s how I learned about the Child Development Associate® (CDA) credential. It provides you with the tools you need to do your job, gives you knowledge of child development, shows you how to build relationships with families. And it helped me keep doing what I loved—working with children and families.”
She began to rebuild her career as a volunteer at the Rosemount Center in DC while earning her center-based CDA. After completing her credential, she worked for a while at a Maryland center until a new opportunity arose. “The director of the Rosemount Center asked me if I’d like to come back there as a home visitor,” she says, “and that’s how I learned about the home visiting field. I fell in love with it and wound up getting my home visitor CDA. Since then, I’ve had the best of both worlds because you get to work with the child, and you also engage the parents in the process.”
Building trusting bonds with families isn’t easy, she admits. “You have to devote time to the process. You have to treat them with respect, and you have to get to know their culture and goals.” All this involves a lot of work, but there are tremendous rewards. “Home visits give you the chance to meet a family’s challenges in their own space where they’re more at ease. You also can engage more with them than you can in the classroom where you only see parents when there are meetings or challenges with the children. Families come to realize they can go to you for whatever they need.”
And that builds real connections, as Gisela saw some years ago while making home visits to the parents of a three-year-old child who had developmental delays. “I connected them with the extra services they needed for their child,” she recalls “adjusted my hours so I could meet with both the mom and dad and made sure the mom got prenatal care for the child she was expecting. The parents were so grateful they wound up making Gisela their new baby’s middle name, and it was an honor I will always cherish.”
Gisela also treasures the ties she’s built with the many families she’s helped feel welcome in a new home, connected with community resources and coached on ways to be better parents. She has also made them feel they’re not alone by sharing her own struggles as a newcomer to this nation. “When the time was right,” she says, “I told them my story to show them the steps you need to take and how much you can achieve.”
Now Gisela manages both a home-based program for UPO and program operations at some of UPO’s community centers. “I miss going to homes on a regular basis,” she says, “but in this role, I have the chance to take a more holistic view of my field and I am able to move the pieces as needed.”
One of things she urges her staff to do is look at the strengths of the families that they serve. “Unfortunately, we sometimes take a deficit approach and don’t take the time to learn about their strengths,” she says. “But imagine the trauma they went through to get here. They left everything behind, and some of them faced life-and-death situations. Not everybody can do that.”
These parents deserve respect and UPO encourages them to make their voices heard by inviting them to join its policy council committee. “The monthly committee meetings give them a chance to learn about updates to the program and share their concerns. Then we work together to make any needed changes,” Gisela explains. The meetings also give her the chance to stay involved with the parents. “I don’t want to lose that connection with parents because they’re the ones who are going to tell you where your program needs to go.” So, Gisela welcomes their feedback and the chance to keep making an impact on their lives, the way she did to one young mom of two who served on the committee.
As a Latino woman, she came from a culture where the mom tends to stay at home with the kids while the dad goes to work—something that’s not always possible here where families need two incomes to get by. “But this mom was very shy,” Gisela recalls, “and the thought of going into the world made her nervous, so I encouraged her over the course of the two years she spent in the program. In time, she became the chairperson of the committee and then she went to college to earn her degree in nutrition science. She didn’t have a resume, which made it hard to get a job, so I shared my experience as a volunteer and showed her how it helped me find a paying position. So, she went to volunteer and now has a job with one of our partner programs. She’s doing well at work and I’m proud of what she’s achieved.”
This young mom’s advances bring home the value of the bonds Gisela builds with families. And helping parents grow and learn also inspires Gisela to keep on growing. She recently earned a credential in business and hopes one day to earn a degree in the field. She also plans to do more to keep building her UPO home-based program and make it a strengths-based model for the District. She’s committed to being her best so she can bring out the best in the DC families she serves.
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Vice President of Strategic Alliances
Elisa Shepherd is the Vice President of Strategic Alliances at the Council, where she leads initiatives to advance the Council’s mission and strategic plan through designing, managing, and executing a comprehensive stakeholder relationship strategy.
With over 25 years of experience in early childhood education (ECE), Elisa has dedicated her career to developing impactful programs, professional development opportunities, and public policies that support working families, young children, and ECE staff. Before joining the Council, Elisa held numerous roles within the childcare industry. Most recently, she served as Associate Vice President at The Learning Experience and as Senior Manager at KinderCare Education, where she influenced government affairs and public policies across 40 states.
Elisa’s commitment to leadership is reflected in her external roles on the Early Care and Education Consortium Board of Directors, the Florida Chamber Foundation Board of Trustees, and as the DEI Caucus Leader for KinderCare Education. She has been recognized as an Emerging Leader in Early Childhood by Childcare Exchange’s Leadership Initiative.
Elisa earned a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with a focus on child development from Pennsylvania State University in State College, PA.
Chief Operations Officer (COO)
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 (CFO)
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.
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.
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