Description: Four experts on the child care system in Northwest Lower Michigan will provide learning, context and practical solutions related to child care that can help attract and retain valuable employees. Attendees can expect to learn 1) Why there is a challenge in child care today. 2) Why quality child care is so important. 3) How child care gaps are affecting businesses. 4) What is happening locally and at the state level to address system gaps and opportunities. 5) What businesses are doing to adapt to changing child care needs. 6) Resources available to help business leaders. By the end of the session, human resources professionals should have detailed knowledge of how to navigate child care opportunities and tangible options to better support their employees.

Bios:

Mary Ufford Manner, MS, is co-director of the Great Start to Quality NW Resource Center and Region 2 Early Literacy Hub, and project director for the Family Child Care Network hub at United Way of NW MI. Her work is focused on promoting increased investment in early childhood, supporting systems-level efforts to raise the quality of and access to child care and early learning programs for all families, and ensuring that our region’s early childhood workforce is thriving. Mary serves on several local nonprofit boards and committees in the Grand Traverse region, and is a volunteer ACEs Master Trainer. 

Kristina Bajtka is the Director of TriShare and DuoShare for the United Way of Northwest Michigan. Kristina’s background in administration, marketing, management, and time with a chamber of commerce organization combined with an early childhood degree gives a unique perspective. Kristina’s work experience in the business and education sectors has afforded a melding of collaborative concepts. Although segregation happens in these fields, they ultimately impact each other, and her work is aimed at helping to stabilize the early childhood workforce and programming.

Woody Smith is a co-founder of The Adjacency, a systems change consultancy based in Traverse City, Michigan. In his 25 years of professional experience, Woody has led engagements focused on guiding organizational strategy, generating new services, responding to stakeholder needs and effectively engaging with communities. His great satisfaction is using the voice of stakeholders to create roadmaps for success, and he has developed and fielded hundreds of successful survey and research projects. Clients have included business, nonprofits, governments and complex community projects involving cross-sector leadership groups. Woody has had critical roles in a number of successful regional early childhood initiatives conducted in Northwest Lower Michigan since 2010, including 5toONE and Child Caring Now. Other past and current clients include 3M, Hagerty, Wells Fargo Bank, the Great Lakes Commission, Munson Healthcare, DePaul University and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, among others. Woody holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a BA from Williams College.

Norika Kida Betti is the Early Childhood System Coordinator at United Way of Northwest Michigan. In this role, Norika has helped coordinate Child Caring Now, an initiative of the Great Start Collaborative of Traverse Bay that aims to increase the affordability, accessibility, and quality of the region's child care system. In addition, she led an innovative project dubbed Community Connections @ WORK that aimed to increase working families' access to child care and other community resources by utilizing an existing program of the Community Health Innovation Regions of Northern Michigan. Prior to joining the United Way team one year ago, Norika worked for eight years as a legal aid attorney representing parents and children in child welfare matters and coordinating a pro bono program for a statewide legal aid program. Norika holds a BA in Human Development and Social Relations from Kalamazoo College and a JD from Vermont Law and Graduate School.