2022 RBPD Fall Retreat

Angela Vierkant

Angela has been active in early childhood education in the Rochester area for over 20 years. Her past roles have included preschool teacher, community education teacher, preschool director and child care center director. She became a Parent Aware coach in 2018 when she joined Families First and Child Care Aware of Minnesota, Southern. In 2019 she received her CLASS® Coach Certification and completed the RBPD Credential. Her work takes her into a variety of early childhood programs across southeastern Minnesota, and it offers her many opportunities to build relationships with early childhood professionals.

Zang Vang-Lee

Zang Vang-Lee understands the importance of healthy experiences for children, especially in the early years of their lives. She is a mom of three teenagers who all empowered her to become the advocate and resource for children, families, and community that she is today. She has worked with schools, families, and communities advocating for more equitable resources and services. Zang has been with Hmong Early Childhood Coalition (HECC) for over 10 years. She believes in the mission and vision of HECC and wants to ensure Hmong children and families have the necessary tools and resources to do well in life. Zang holds a master’s degree in education from the University of Minnesota and has licensures in pre-primary (age 3-pre-K) and K-8. She is also an approved bilingual trainer and has been training since 2016.

Elizabeth Peters Rust

Betsy has worked in the early childhood special education field for 19 years. She worked as a speech-language pathologist serving children birth to graduation and their families in a public school district in northeast Minnesota. Betsy has been a regional ECSE professional development facilitator for MN Centers of Excellence for Young Children with Disabilities since 2016. She has been an Achieve master trainer since 2015.

Betsy earned her undergraduate degree and her MA in communication sciences and disorders from the University of Minnesota Duluth. She holds an ASHA Certificate of Clinical Competence and a Minnesota Educator License. Betsy is certified in Cognitive Coaching, certified in the Fidelity in Practice: Early Intervention via Family Infant and Preschool Program, and has extensive training in practice-based coaching. She supports many EC/ECSE program coaches and provides coaching to other professionals.

Julie Li Yang

Julie Li Yang, BSN, is a graduate student in the Maternal and Child Health program at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. Her research interests explore the intersectionality of disability, gender, and race and their overall impact on quality of life. She serves people with disabilities receiving home care services in her professional work. As a parent advocate for autistic children, she is passionate about early childhood screening and early intervention services and addressing the fear, stigma, shame, and oppression around autism and other neurodevelopmental-related disabilities within her community. She is driven to serve people with disabilities and advocate for safer and more socially inclusive environments.

Beth Menninga

Beth Menninga, IMH-E®, is the relationship-based professional development manager at the Center for Inclusive Child Care (CICC). In that role, she oversees the coaching efforts at CICC, supporting the team of CICC RBPD Specialists and coordinating RBPD efforts with other CICC team members and partnership organizations. With past experience as a preschool teacher and child care center director, her work over the past 20 years has focused on professional development efforts in the content areas of infant-toddler caregiving, early literacy, and early math. In her previous position at CEED, she was coordinator and lead author of the Minnesota Credential for RBPD Specialists and the Minnesota Knowledge and Competency Framework for RBPD Specialists. She is currently working with Vicki Hawley on updating the RBPD credential content. She is co-author of Intentional Teaching in Early Childhood (Free Spirit/Redleaf Press).

Kateri Skunes

Kateri Skunes is the professional development systems lead coordinator for Child Care Aware of Minnesota. She supports the work of professional development advisors and Parent Aware advising, as well as the training delivery staff across the state. She has been part of the Child Care Aware system and early childhood field for over 12 years. Kateri participated in the Child Care Advocates Ready to Emerge (CARE) Fellowship in 2012 and the National Education for Women (NEW) Leadership Develop Institute in 2015. Kateri uses her skills and knowledge from her career and leadership programs to enhance and enact her vision of a professionalized workforce and coordinated early childhood system.

Catherine Wright

Catherine L. Wright, PsyD, LP, LPCC, is a former Zero to Three Fellow, a current National Registered Health Psychologist and an Endorsed® Infant Mental Health Mentor. Catherine has over 25 years of experience providing direct children’s mental health services and managing children’s mental health programs and systems. She is the early childhood mental health system coordinator within the Behavioral Health Division of the Department of Human Services for the State of Minnesota. At the State of Minnesota, Catherine is responsible for developing the early childhood mental health system of care, including arranging for and managing trainings in evidence-based practices for early childhood mental health clinicians, supporting policy development around early childhood mental health, and integrating clinical services within family serving systems such as child care, Head Start, schools, primary care clinics and the adult mental health system. She is interested in developing evidence-based treatments for parents with serious mental illness who are parenting their young children.

Matt Carlson

As child care capacity building coordinator with Child Care Aware of MN, Matt coordinates the Child Care Wayfinder network, which is made up of child care startup and retention navigators around the state who are available to help individuals and organizations with starting and growing child care programs. In his role, he provides support to local agencies and their navigators as they refine their technical assistance processes and execute local strategies that contribute to the goal of increasing access to child care for families in Minnesota.

Katie Hoffman

Katie Hoffman is the director of quality improvement for the Coordinating Office of Child Care Aware of MN. She has worked on the quality improvement team for over seven years and in the field of early childhood for over 30 years. She has degrees from the University of Minnesota Duluth and Walden University. In her role, she oversees the implementation of Parent Aware with her team by supporting quality coaches and recruiters and collaborating with the rating, financial supports, and professional development teams. She recently participated in the workgroup that spent the last three years examining the structures of Parent Aware and developing a Parent Aware racial equity plan. She has experience in the field as a classroom teacher, a nanny, education coordinator, and center director. These experiences are what drive her desire to make positive changes for educators, children and families, and her passions include infant and toddler care and development, adult learning and coaching, equity, and team building. Katie sees the next few years as one of the most exciting times in her career in this field, filled with opportunities and hope.

Tiffany Grant

Tiffany Grant co-founded and managed Excell-ent Care, a family child care program for Excell Academy for Higher Learning staff. She brings 14 years of experience working in early childhood settings assisting in curriculum development, training, coaching, and compliance work for licensed, license-exempt, and non-profit programs. A strong advocate for equity and inclusion, Tiffany spends a lot of her time serving on committees that strengthen her professional skills to create systems of equity. Some of her previous work includes serving on the Minnesota Legislative Task Force representing the seven-county metro area for family child care programs and representing her state at The Public Policy Forum through the National Association for the Education of Young Children and Zero to Three Strolling Thunder, an advocacy event for families. Tiffany received her bachelor’s degree in early childhood studies with a career focus on early psychology and leadership from Metropolitan State University.