Washington, D.C. — Today, the Center for American Progress announced that Yvette Sanchez Fuentes will join the organization as a Senior Fellow. Sanchez Fuentes—who was director of the Office of Head Start at the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from 2009 to 2013—will focus on issues related to early childhood education and the Head Start program.
“Yvette Sanchez Fuentes has dedicated her career to lifting up children and families, to helping the less fortunate succeed, and to ensuring that all children have an equal opportunity to thrive and prosper,” said Carmel Martin, Executive Vice President for Policy at CAP. “Yvette will be an asset to the Center’s work to ensure high-quality early education and care for all infants, toddlers, and young children. Yvette has a remarkable breadth of knowledge on early childhood education programs, and I am thrilled to welcome her to CAP.”
Sanchez Fuentes serves as president of the National Alliance for Hispanic Families, or NAHF, where she carries out the organization’s mission to build on Hispanic communities’ assets in the areas of research, program, and public policy to better serve Hispanic families in need.
As the director of the Office of Head Start at the Administration for Children and Families, or ACF, Sanchez Fuentes helped lead ACF’s critically important mission of enriching the quality of early childhood development for our nation’s most vulnerable children. Prior to her appointment, Sanchez Fuentes was the executive director of the National Migrant and Seasonal Head Start Association, or NMSHSA, where she worked with early education services, policies, and resources for migrant and seasonal farmworker children and their families.
Sanchez Fuentes has also worked at the Education Development Center, where she was the early childhood specialist for the International Systems Division and provided technical assistance to projects in Honduras, El Salvador, and Egypt. She also served as a national Head Start fellow, providing consultation in literacy, parent education, child care collaborations, and program improvement to Migrant and Seasonal Head Start and other early childhood education programs nationwide.
Early in her career, Sanchez Fuentes managed services for a large migrant and seasonal program for staff development and family child care initiatives. She received her B.A. in liberal arts from California State Polytechnic University.
To speak with Yvette Sanchez Fuentes, please contact Allison Preiss at [email protected] or 202.478.6331.
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