Jenna Bannon has been working in the field of early childhood for 25 years in Colorado to improve the way systems across health, mental health, home visitation and education support young children and their families. She has extensive experience in public policy, advocacy, governance, community engagement, and cross-sector collaboration.
Jenna began her policy career working for Governor Roy Romer and Congressman Ed Perlmutter. She helped to pass the legislation to create Colorado's Early Childhood Councils and then went on to manage the roll-out of the Councils at the Colorado Department of Education. From 2011-2018 she worked as the Director of Health and Well-Being for Denver’s Early Childhood Council and led a community-based initiative focused on equity and the social-emotional well-being of young children and Latinx families living in Southwest Denver.
Her work in Southwest Denver has continued as a volunteer with a group of Latina community advocates known as promotoras who work to build relationships and help immigrant families from Mexico and Central America navigate complex systems in the U.S. She also sits on the board of directors of the organization that serves the promotoras called Una Mano, Una Esperanza.
This work inspired Jenna to return to public policy, and she is now the Associate Director of the Children and Families Program at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). NCSL is a nonpartisan membership organization serving all 7,383 state legislators and over 27,000 legislative staff in all states, territories and the District of Columbia. Her work focuses on the upstream strategies that provide children and families the supports they need to be successful, including prenatal-3 programs, quality child care, economic assistance, stable, housing and child welfare policies.
Jenna received her Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Anthropology and Women’s Studies from the University of Minnesota and her Master’s in Nonprofit Management from Regis University. She is an alumna of the Colorado Trust’s Emerging Nonprofit Leaders Fellowship and is a Buell Early Childhood Leadership Fellow (Cohort 14). She studied in England and has traveled through Russia, Europe, and Guatemala. In 1996 she worked in a small village in Alaska and then bought a one-way ticket around the world and spent a year backpacking across the globe.
Jenna is from New Mexico and was raised on the Navajo Reservation in Gallup. She remains committed to her ongoing relationship with the Navajo people. Jenna is currently working with a group of mothers in Tinian, NM who have no running water or electricity and struggle to afford diapers. She is working with them to change this. Jenna lives in Golden, Colorado and spends her time being a single mom of two amazing children, a cat and a dog. She loves people, art, music, food, books, being outdoors and travel.
Jenna began her policy career working for Governor Roy Romer and Congressman Ed Perlmutter. She helped to pass the legislation to create Colorado's Early Childhood Councils and then went on to manage the roll-out of the Councils at the Colorado Department of Education. From 2011-2018 she worked as the Director of Health and Well-Being for Denver’s Early Childhood Council and led a community-based initiative focused on equity and the social-emotional well-being of young children and Latinx families living in Southwest Denver.
Her work in Southwest Denver has continued as a volunteer with a group of Latina community advocates known as promotoras who work to build relationships and help immigrant families from Mexico and Central America navigate complex systems in the U.S. She also sits on the board of directors of the organization that serves the promotoras called Una Mano, Una Esperanza.
This work inspired Jenna to return to public policy, and she is now the Associate Director of the Children and Families Program at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL). NCSL is a nonpartisan membership organization serving all 7,383 state legislators and over 27,000 legislative staff in all states, territories and the District of Columbia. Her work focuses on the upstream strategies that provide children and families the supports they need to be successful, including prenatal-3 programs, quality child care, economic assistance, stable, housing and child welfare policies.
Jenna received her Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Anthropology and Women’s Studies from the University of Minnesota and her Master’s in Nonprofit Management from Regis University. She is an alumna of the Colorado Trust’s Emerging Nonprofit Leaders Fellowship and is a Buell Early Childhood Leadership Fellow (Cohort 14). She studied in England and has traveled through Russia, Europe, and Guatemala. In 1996 she worked in a small village in Alaska and then bought a one-way ticket around the world and spent a year backpacking across the globe.
Jenna is from New Mexico and was raised on the Navajo Reservation in Gallup. She remains committed to her ongoing relationship with the Navajo people. Jenna is currently working with a group of mothers in Tinian, NM who have no running water or electricity and struggle to afford diapers. She is working with them to change this. Jenna lives in Golden, Colorado and spends her time being a single mom of two amazing children, a cat and a dog. She loves people, art, music, food, books, being outdoors and travel.