Karen Carpenter: Manatee County School Board
"There are many reasons I am involved with The Children's Movement: It presents the opportunity, rationale, organization, research, and all the right reasons for us to be working effectively together for our future and the future of Florida: Children are our most important resource. This is the right time and the right way to do the right thing for children."
Karen Carpenter, Manatee County School Board
215 Manatee Ave. W.
Bradenton 34205
941-708-8800
E mail: kcarpen218@verizon.net
Karen Carpenter came to Florida in the early Eighties as a senior bank marketing officer from New England. Prior to her election to the Manatee School Board in 2010, she served as an AmeriCorps VISTA, in Manatee County's Project VISTA Vision Project 20/20 (where she helped the school district's Adult Education, Career and Technical Education Department), with the MTI Foundation and the Take Stock in Children scholarship and mentor program.
She currently Chairs the Take Stock in Children Leadership Council, is a mentor with Take Stock, is the education chair for the League of Women Voters of Manatee County, a member of the Kiwanis Club of Bradenton, and volunteers with Mothers Helping Mothers and is a director of the Foundation for Dreams, which provides recreational enhancement for children with disabilities. She has served as executive director of the Women's Resource Center of Manatee County, Manatee Bankers for Affordable Housing,and the Foundation for Dreams and consulted in resource development for the Homeless Coalition and New College.
She attended public schools in Reading, Mass., and was granted the Procter & Gamble Scholarship to attend Wellesley College. Her first job was teaching Latin to middle, high school and state college students in San Diego Calif. Her master's degree thesis measured the impact of school district size on teacher job satisfaction levels. In her mid-50s, she went tolaw school, receiving the J.D. degree and passing the bar in Massachusetts. Never intending to practice law, she wanted the skills and credentials to strengthen her advocacy for children and families.
Her two daughters and four grandchildren live in the Boston area: both attended public schools and have masters' degrees. One daughter is a charter school administrator, the other a nonprofit training manager.
Kathryn Shea: President and CEO of The Florida Center for Early Childhood
"As CEO of a non-profit children's agency focusing on early childhood prevention and intervention services, I see The Children's Movement as the hub of a growing wheel of child advocates that will turn around the data for Florida's children. I am optimisistic that with the leadership and passion the Children's Movement provides we can truly make Florida's children the No. 1 priority."
Kathryn Shea, president and CEO of The Florida Center for Early Childhood
4620 17th St.
Sarasota 34235
www.thefloridacenter.org
941-371-8820-ext. 1043
E mail: kathryn.shea@thefloridacenter.org
Kathryn Shea is a licensed clinical social worker with more than 30 years of experience working with children with serious emotional and behavioral disorders. She specializes in the areas of infant/young children’s mental health and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD). Kathryn is president and CEO of The Florida Center for Early Childhood in Sarasota, whose mission is the healthy development of young children, their families and communities.
Kathryn is a national trainer in infant/young children’s mental health and a field trainer for SAMHSA FASD Center for Excellence (sharing both her professional expertise and personal stories of raising an adopted son with fetal alcohol syndrome). She has been instrumental in working with the SAMHSA Early Childhood Systems of Care Community to change eligibility criteria for enrollment of infants and young children and co-authored Lessons From The Field -- An Update in 2011.
She has served as a consultant to the Alaska Department of Health, is an advisory board member of Florida Fights FASD, and is past president of the Florida Association for Infant Mental Health.