Partnership for America’s Children is proud to launch the CORE Collective Leadership Development Fellowship, a new investment in the future of child advocacy leadership.
This fellowship was built in response to a clear and growing need: to develop a diverse pipeline of equity-centered leaders prepared to lead the child advocacy sector now and in the future. For months, members across the country offered their time, insight, and expertise to help shape this fellowship. Today, we’re proud to introduce our inaugural cohort. The 2026 Fellows are:
- Krystal Baba, Senior Manager of Research, Evaluation, and Learning, Hawaiʻi Children’s Action Network
- Crystal Charles, Senior Policy Manager, Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy
- Allison Gilbreath, Senior Director of Policy and Programs, Voices for Virginia’s Children
- Angel Gray, Program & Policy Manager, Westchester Children’s Association
- Cristal Ibarra Lezama, Director of Operations and Belonging, Colorado Children’s Campaign
- Jami Jones, Director of HR and Operations, Kansas Action for Children
- Maya Meinert, Director of Communications, The Children’s Partnership
- Pete Nabozny, Policy Director, The Children’s Agenda
- Caitlyn Passaretti, Senior Policy Associate, Citizens’ Committee for Children of New York
- Malia Tsuchiya, Early Childhood Policy and Advocacy Coordinator, Hawaiʻi Children’s Action Network
These fellows were selected for their leadership, their commitment to equity, and the depth of experience they bring to this work. Over nine months, the CORE Collective Fellows will journey together to deepen their confidence, expand their strategic capacity, and build a community of peers who will sustain one another well beyond this fellowship.
The curriculum is organized around four key themes, which will be woven together throughout the Fellowship experience:
Strategic Leadership: Building adaptive, systems-level thinking and the strategic capacities needed for executive roles.
Equity-Centered Practice: Integrating equity as the foundation of leadership, not a supplement, across every aspect of the work.
Holistic Wellbeing: Treating wellness—financial, physical, and emotional—as a leadership capacity, not an afterthought.
Sector Connection: Building lasting peer relationships and a network of trusted colleagues across the child advocacy field.
This fellowship was not designed in isolation. It was built through months of listening, surveys, focus groups, interviews with Executive Directors, conversations with mid-career professionals across the network, and consultations with leadership development specialists in the social impact sector. What Fellows will experience this year reflects what the field said it needed: a program that starts with the whole person, centers equity, and builds the kind of peer relationships that last.
Thank you for helping to shape the CORE Collective. Please join us in congratulating and welcoming our inaugural cohort.