Health policy and nonprofit consultant Andrea Densham was recently named executive director of the Childcare Network of Evanston (CNE).
Serving Evanston residents for 45 years, CNE's mission is to create awareness for the importance of early childhood education and advocate for the community's youngest members.
For 20 years, Densham has worked in community-driven public policy and advocacy, non-profit management and strategic alliance building. As executive director of CNE, Densham will be responsible for running the organization, working with the board of directors, the policy committee and the staff to support the mission of the organization and look for ways to expand and have a greater impact in the community.
"I will be making sure the organization runs well and has the resources it needs for the staff and clients," said Densham. "I will be providing a vision which I hope to apply with the assistance of the staff, the board and the policy council (made up of clients and community leaders). I am really excited and thrilled to be working with them because I can use my professional and life experience doing work with non-profits in this position."
"We're excited to welcome Andrea Densham as executive director," said CNE Board President Deb Danson. "Martha Arntson, our out-going director, created a strong foundation to help ensure access to quality early care and education in our community and laid the groundwork for a smooth transition. Andrea is a leader with the vision, experience and passion to take CNE to the next level and beyond."
Born in Ann Arbor, Mich., Densham got her activist genes from her environmental activist family. This foundation stayed with Densham as she met other activists in the 1980s before heading off to college and it was through them that she learned about leadership, clear messaging and what it means to mobilize many communities together.
Densham graduated from the University of Massachusetts-Boston with a B.A. in political science. While attending college, she continued to raise awareness about the HIV/AIDS epidemic having previously organized a protest in her hometown of Ann Arbor. Following graduation, Densham moved on to graduate school at the University of Chicago where she earned a masters degree in political science.
Since then, Densham has served on the boards of numerous organizations, including the Lesbian Community Cancer Project and the National Coalition on LGBT Health. She has also worked as a policy coordinator/project director at the University of Illinois-Chicago and as vice president of public health and government affairs for Prevent Blindness America. She has also owned her own consulting firm, Densham Consulting, since 2005.
Densham noted that all of her volunteer work reminds her what everyone brings to the table, not just the clients but also the volunteers. "I really believe in transforming change through identifying community assets and I think that my experience working in the LGBTQ community will help me achieve these goals. The focus on clients being leaders and advocates is something that I want to bring to the job," she said.
Densham has been involved with lesbian activism since moving to Chicago 18 years ago. For the last six years she has lived in Evanston with her spouse, Amy Kipfer, and stepdaughter, Shama.
"One of the things that I'm going to bring to CNE is my perspective on blended families. We've done a lot of work around marriage and we sometimes present an image of a nuclear family but the truth is for most of our (LGBT) history we've been blended families in all sorts of ways," said Densham.
"I think we are at our best when we bring as many viewpoints as we can to the table, and I know that is true for our clients who are not coming from white-picket fence, nuclear-family lives. We have to recognize the diversity of how families are structured, how we develop chosen families and how we thrive through communities.
"As people have become aware of my new job my incredibly happy and proud 13-year-old step-daughter has been excited by the press recognition," said Densham. "I am so blessed to be joining an organization that embraces me fully, lesbian mom with a spouse and all the other parts of me."
See www.childcarenetworkofevanston.org for more information.
