Vermont’s Early Childhood State Advisory Council (SAC) is the state’s Governor-appointed, primary advisory body on the well-being of children from the prenatal period through age 8 and their families, advising the Governor, Administration, and Legislature on early childhood policy and systems improvements. The SAC is composed of 27 members, including seven public designated members, two legislators, 15 at-large members, and three non-voting members who work together to issue recommendations, increase coordination and collaboration, and advance a more connected, integrated, and equitable early childhood system.
Learn more about the SAC, including notices of upcoming meetings and recordings of past meetings. The State Advisory Council members represent a cross-section of accomplished professionals working to improve child well-being in the health, education, and early care fields.
Ilisa Stalberg
SAC Public Co-Chair; Vermont Department of Health
Ilisa Stalberg, MSS, MLSP, is the Director of Maternal and Child Health (MCH) at the Vermont Department of Health, and prior to this served as the Deputy MCH Director at the Health Department. In these roles, Ilisa oversees strategic planning and statewide program development, and works to support public health integration with health care and social service delivery. Ilisa has a Master of Social Service and Law and Social Policy degree from Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.
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Flor Diaz Smith
SAC Private Co-Chair; Vermont School Boards Association
Flor grew up in Guatemala City. She is a licensed architect in Guatemala and has been designing in Vermont since 1997. She studied at Francisco Marroquin Architecture School in Guatemala, at Texas A&M, and in Chicago, and she won a scholarship to the Prince of Wales Urban Task Force in 1996. She came to Vermont for an internship at a local architectural firm and fell in love with both Vermont and her future husband.
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Amber Hewston
Family Representative
Amber Hewston was born and raised in Lamoille County, Vermont. After high school, Amber left Vermont to attend Clark University where she also spent two semesters abroad in the United Kingdom. She went on to earn a Master of Physical Therapy degree from California State University, Long Beach, and completed a Doctor of Physical Therapy in Pediatric Science degree at Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions. Amber has worked in pediatric physical therapy for over 12 years in Hawaii, the UK, and Vermont, where she returned in 2021 and is an Early Intervention Physical Therapist in the North Windsor and Orange County region.
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Carol Lang-Godin
Lamoille Family Center
Carol Lang-Godin is the Executive Director of the Lamoille Family Center and a member of the Vermont Parent Child Center Network. Carol earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Johnson State College and has worked in the human services field since 1998. Her initial focus was on the early childhood years spending time in classrooms and as a home visitor for Children’s Integrated Services. She has since expanded her focus to include those beyond the early childhood years, but she will always have a special interest in the success of our youngest Vermonters and their caregivers.
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Cheryle Wilcox
Vermont Department of Mental Health
Cheryle Bilodeau Wilcox, LICSW, is the Interagency Planning Director for Vermont, Agency of Human Services, Department of Mental Health. Cheryle earned a bachelor’s degree in Human Services and Counseling from Lyndon State College and a master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Vermont. She has worked in the human services field for over 20 years. Her experience includes working in child welfare, being a foster parent for adolescents, and working as a trainer and consultant. She has also worked in school-based mental health care and as an outpatient therapist.
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Christy Swenson
SAC Secretary; Capstone Community Action/Head Start
Christy Swenson spent almost 20 years providing direct service for children and families. She began her career as a speech-language pathologist working for a rural hospital that held the contract for birth-to-three services for the county. She provided the services for that contract through home visiting and a preschool program, as well as providing outpatient therapy to a mostly preschool population. She then worked in the school system, where she developed specialties in autism spectrum disorder and developmental verbal dyspraxia.
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Danielle Lindley Mitchell
Washington County Mental Health Services
Danielle Lindley Mitchell was raised down in the Gulf Coast of Southern Mississippi. She attended and graduated from Mississippi State University with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. After graduating in 2003, she decided to make the move to St. Albans, Vermont, to begin her career in the human services field. Shortly after arriving, she began working at Northwestern Counseling & Support Services (NCSS) as an adolescent services outreach worker. As her passion and dedication to the field grew, Danielle pursued her master’s in social work from the University of Vermont.
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Debra Hartswick
Retired Medical Professional
Dr. Hartswick recently retired after 30 years in private practice at Pediatric Medicine, PLC, in South Burlington. Building strong relationships with patients was a cornerstone of her clinical career. While supporting families through their children’s growth and development, she learned the importance of family centered healthcare. She feels honored by the trust that families placed in her over the years, with many of her first patients bringing their children (and even grandchildren) to her.
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Dimitri Garder
Business Representative; Global-Z International
Dimitri Garder is co-founder and CEO of Global-Z International, a data management company serving global brands for the past 30 years. In his work, he has developed and implemented complex global data quality assessment and improvement solutions for many Global-Z clients, ranging from small companies to Fortune 100s. His 30 years of experience with complex global data makes him one of the leading experts in the data management industry. His approach to data quality is pragmatic, statistically focused, and metrics driven.
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Eddie Gale
A. D. Henderson Foundation
Eddie Gale is the Vermont Program Director for the A.D. Henderson Foundation. The Henderson Foundation is one of the larger private funders of early care and education and adult-to-child mentoring programs in Vermont, and Eddie helps applicants think strategically about their proposals, including articulating why the work is needed and determining how to measure impact. Prior to his involvement with the Henderson Foundation, Eddie began his career in philanthropy with the Vermont Community Foundation, implementing two grants from the Ford Foundation to support community-based initiatives and sustainable development in the Northeast Kingdom.
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Erica McLaughlin
Vermont Principals’ Association
Erica McLaughlin grew up in Rutland, Vermont, and left to study at Sacred Heart University where she earned her Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Arts in Teaching. She taught in Bridgeport, Connecticut, for nine years and later returned to Vermont to be close to family and became an elementary principal at Randolph Elementary School for 17 years. Erica is now the Assistant Executive Director for elementary schools for the Vermont Principals’ Association. She enjoys supporting principals across the state by providing high-quality professional learning opportunities, coaching, and advocating for leaders and learners.
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Janet McLaughlin
DCF Child Development Division
Janet McLaughlin serves as the Deputy Commissioner for the Child Development Division at the Department for Children and Families. From 2021 to 2023, she served as the Executive Director for the Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children (VTAEYC). Janet’s passion for a more equitable society has driven her two decades in nonprofit leadership. Prior to VTAEYC, Janet worked at the intersection of programs and policy in Vermont’s early childhood education system while serving as Chief Programs Officer, interim CEO, and Chief Operating Officer at Let’s Grow Kids. Prior to that, she headed the Vermont Community Foundation’s Food and Farm Initiative, a collaborative effort to fight hunger in Vermont while strengthening its local food system.
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Jessica Vintinner
Agency of Commerce
Kiona Baez Heath
Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence
Kiona Baez Heath (she/her) engages social change and systems-based approaches to understanding and addressing trauma and oppression. Her work has included direct services for survivors of violence and exploitation, technical assistance to agencies and organizers seeking to increase equity in their work, anti-oppressive policy development for healthcare and educational institutions, and training for local and national anti-violence partners. Kiona is currently the Director of Trauma Informed Care at the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence.
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Libby Daghlian
Family Representative
Libby joined the Building Bright Futures State Advisory Committee in 2022 as a Family Representative. Libby was born and raised in Vermont and attended UVM before moving abroad to Uganda, where she worked for a number of different nonprofits focused on youth education, water and sanitation, and reproductive and menstrual health, respectively. While there, she also met her future husband and started their family. After a decade abroad, they moved to Winooski, where they live with their two young daughters. Libby is passionate about helping to build communities that are equitable and inclusive and that support individuals and families at every stage of life.
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Meg Porcella
Agency of Education
Rebecca (Becca) Webb
SAC Treasurer; Barre Unified Union School District
Rebecca (Becca) Webb has been in the field of early childhood since 1997. She has worked in a variety of early childhood environments, including as a classroom teacher and director in community childcares, developmental educator in Early Intervention, public-school classroom teacher, and itinerant special educator. In her three years as a Project Director for the Vermont Child Health Improvement Program (VCHIP), she coached providers in implementing universal developmental screenings in their programs.
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Renee Kelly
Head Start Collaboration Office
Renee Kelly serves as Director of the Vermont Head Start Collaboration Office within the Child Development Division. She holds a B.S. in Psychology & Human Services from Lyndon State College, a Certificate in Nonprofit Management from Marlboro College, and has over 10 years of experience in human services and early childhood systems, beginning by serving as an Early Head Start Home Visitor in Newport, Vermont. She is a 2018 graduate of the Snelling Center for Government Vermont Leadership Institute and is qualified as a Results-Based Accountability (RBA) trainer and certified facilitator.
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Rep. Jessica Brumsted
Vermont House of Representatives
Jessica Brumsted was born in Warwick, Rhode Island, and came to Vermont in 1983 to attend the University of Vermont (UVM), where she earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and economics and a master’s in public administration. Jessica is an experienced government relations professional who started her career in Congressman and then Senator Jim Jeffords’ Vermont office in the late 1980s, where she worked for 12 years on health care and disability policy before serving as Director of Government Relations at (then) Fletcher Allen Health Care.
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Sen. Ruth Hardy
Vermont Senate
Ruth Hardy of East Middlebury, Addison County, Democrat, was raised in central New York State in the Ithaca area, where her mother was a teacher and her father was a state civil servant. Ruth received a BA in Government from Oberlin College in Ohio and a master’s degree from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. Following graduate school, Ruth was a Fiscal Analyst for the Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau, covering education issues.
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Sharron Harrington
Vermont Association for the Education of Young Children (VTAEYC)
Shayla Livingston
Agency of Human Services
Xusana Davis
Vermont Office of Racial Equity
Xusana Davis serves as the State of Vermont’s Executive Director of Racial Equity. She was appointed to the position in June 2019 by Governor Phil Scott. She works with State agencies to identify and address systemic racial disparities, ensure that equity goals and objectives are incorporated throughout the State’s operations, and provide strategic and policy guidance on equity issues. Prior to joining the State of Vermont, she served as Director of Health & Housing Strategic Initiatives at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and as the Director of the Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus of the New York City Council.
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Miranda Gray
Non-voting member; Economic Services Division
Miranda Gray is the Deputy Commissioner for Vermont, Agency of Human Services, Department for Children and Families, Economic Services. Previously, she held the Deputy Commissioner role in the Child Development Division. Miranda has a bachelor’s degree in psychology, has graduated from the Snelling Center for Government’s Vermont Leadership Institute, and has presented at several national conferences/webinars on the whole-family approach and success through coordinated mental health and substance use services.
