Cristen Brown

Director of Child & Family Learning
Cristen@VOCEL.org

“Parents are the experts of their child, their household and their culture!”

Cristen is VOCEL’s Director of Child and Family Learning. She has worked in and around education for more time than she’d like to admit, spending years working to bring high quality educational resources to children in underserved communities throughout Illinois and the Midwest. In her current role, she leads a team of Teachers and Family Support Specialists as they work to create greater equity in the early childhood education landscape.

Cristen’s educational background is firmly rooted in the social sciences, and she holds a Master of Science in Child Development, with a specialization in working with children and families with disabilities. This formal education has helped connect the dots and learn the brain science, but Cristen feels that her greatest education has come from being a parent herself. This is why she feels so strongly that parents should be regarded as the experts of their children, and why she always seeks to learn from the expertise of the caregivers she works with. Cristen is especially passionate about amplifying the voices of children and families with diverse needs and abilities in a world that too often ignores or speaks over them.

Cristen is a local historian and researcher, and sits on the board of directors of her local historical society. She is also a creative, and additionally sits on the board of a nonprofit art gallery. In her free time, she is a photographer, musician, miniaturist and writer. She is a huge fan of classic film, unheralded Chicago architecture, and is known to get oddly passionate about a great pair of shoes.