Dyanna was once bullied because of the color of her skin. As a biracial child, she wasn’t Black enough or white enough to fit in. “I spent the first 10 years of my life in a mainly white part of Flat Rock, MI, where the white girls used to call out my name and pick on me after school while I walked from the bus stop to my home,” she recalls. And things didn’t get any better after her family moved to a part of the city that was mainly Black. “The Black girls also made cracks about the color of my skin and the texture of my hair. They tried to pick fights with me, and I still don’t know why,” she says. But she does know that “it made me stronger.” And she needed to be strong as a single Black mom, like many of the folks she now serves as a family child care provider in Detroit.
The trials she went through made her empathize with the ordeals of the community members she now serves.” “I was a teenage mom who had little education and an abusive partner,” she recalls. “I was finding it hard to put enough food on the table for my children, and I had to hold multiple jobs to pay my bills. So, it was a good thing that my mother watched my six children. She dropped everything she was doing to help me out so I could go to work. Then, when my children began to go on to grade school, she took in other neighborhood children and made a living as a family child care provider,” Dyanna says.
And Dyanna made her own living by serving in the nonprofit sector where she could help those in need. Her jobs have included working as executive assistant to the CEO at Vehicles for Change, an organization that taught former prison inmates how to fix cars and then gave the cars to community members in need, Dyanna explains. “I received one of those cars and that’s how I met the CEO of the group and found that job” which was a double blessing. It wasn’t just a way for Dyanna to earn a living wage. It also allowed her to give back.
“I have a passion to help people,” Dyanna says. And she also fulfilled it by working in the education field at United Way. “I managed a project in the public schools to ensure high school students were ready to enter college or the workforce,” Dyanna explains. And she was committed to this work because United Way also helped her when she was a teen mom with poor prospects for the future. “I came full circle when I went to work for them,” she explains, “and helped to build paths for the high schoolers to succeed.”
While programs like this can make an impact, the foundation for success starts when children are in their tender years, so Dyanna began working with our youngest learners about five years ago. By then her six children had grown up and needed child care for their own little ones. So Dyanna followed her mom’s example and became a family child care provider. Her home is a warm, caring place where everyone calls her Nana, whether they’re part of her family or not. “I wanted to help my grandchildren and the children of others,” she says, “because it’s hard to find quality, cost-effective child care you can count on.”
Dyanna remembers how she struggled to find this kind of child care until her mom stepped in. And her experience working two or three jobs at the same time has shaped her approach as a provider. “I would get up at 4 AM to work an early shift, and sometimes my schedule would change. So, I make it a point to accommodate moms who don’t work 9 to 5. For example, I have a mom who has to work one day on the weekend, which means I work that day, too. Another brings her children to me at 12:30 in the afternoon and they’re still here at 9:30 at night. So, I basically have children with me nearly all the time. It isn’t easy and I’m exhausted when I go to sleep. But I do it because my mission is to be there for the moms,” she explains.
“I know what it feels like to need help,” Dyanna says. And her sense of empathy even led her to take in a young woman with two kids. “I bumped into her while I was downtown at an event with my husband, a retired grade school principal and teacher. After chatting a bit, we learned that the mom was homeless, and her children weren’t in school,” Dyanna says. “She needed a safe place to stay, so we opened our home to her for two months. The haven we provided to that mom allowed her to get back on her feet and put her children in school so they, too, could get back on track.”
It’s not always easy to be the child of a single parent, as Dyanna has seen. Besides the financial strains that affect them, the children may be subject to unkind remarks, like one of the little girls Dyanna has cared for in her home. “She didn’t have a father,” Dyanna says. “And one of the other girls kept asking her, ‘Where’s your dad? Where’s your dad?’—words that struck a delicate chord in Dyanna’s heart since they reminded her of the bullying she had gone through. So, she put a stop to all those questions about the absent dad. “I made it clear to the girl who was making the remarks that we have to pay attention to people’s feelings. We need to treat everyone fairly.”
And Dyanna knows how to get a message across, as she did with a four-year-old boy named Roman who began acting in an aggressive way and hurting the other children. She needed to make him understand that this wasn’t right, and she used a teddy bear to teach the lesson. “I told him the teddy bear wasn’t being nice, so we’re going to spank him,” Dyanna recalls. “I put the teddy over my shoulder and tapped him a few times on the bottom. Then I handed the teddy to Roman, who told the teddy it’s not nice to hit our friends because hitting hurts. He went on to hug the teddy and then hug the little girl he had hurt. As he rubbed her arm gently, he told her how sorry he was.”
It was a teaching moment on how to treat people right, Dyanna explains. And that’s her goal, especially when it comes to children. But she knows her sense of compassion isn’t enough to make her a professional in the early childhood field. So, she’s done a lot of research on conflict resolution and how to keep children safe, taken a lot of training courses, and is now working toward her AA in early childhood education. She’s also taken the courses to become a certified labor and postpartum doula, so she can be qualified to guide expecting and new moms.
All this ongoing learning is part of a long-term plan to build a business that would provide children with services from birth to third grade. It’s a goal she shares with her husband, and it would combine their expertise. “I feel like we cover all the phases of teaching and caring for children, him as a former grade school teacher and me as a certified doula and child care provider. “My husband and I want to expand in the education space, and we talk about it a lot,” Dyanna says. “It’s our dream to do even more for young children and parents in Detroit.”
It will take time to build the business, and in the meanwhile, Dyanna is committed to doing a good job with the children she now serves. “I feel blessed to be able to help the moms, and I absolutely love the time with the children. It’s a joy to watch them grow and learn,” she says. “Still, there are so many things that are going on in the world with children that it just breaks my heart,” Dyanna says.
Bullying is still a problem, and Dyanna hasn’t forgotten what she went through as a child. Though she has forgiven the girls who taunted her long ago, what they did has shaped her as a provider today. So, she’s committed to giving the children a place where they can feel good about who they are and help others feel good about themselves, too. “I want them to know they can come to Nana’s house,” she says, “to have fun and get some love while learning the rules for being nice.”
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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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