Rebecca Gartner is the Director of Child and Youth Programs at The Village Institute, a non-profit organization supporting single mother refugee families in Aurora, Colorado. As the founder of The Little Village, an on-site childcare center, Rebecca focuses on family inclusion, cultural exchange, dual language development, and trauma-informed practices. By collaborating with a youth board, parent groups, and a refugee committee, Rebecca co-creates programs and informs a multicultural curriculum that supports the whole family. Rebecca is committed to equity in early childhood, as well as life-long learning.
As a current Buell Fellow in the Buell Early Childhood Leadership Program at the University of Colorado-Denver, Rebecca is able to apply her new learnings around leadership, community based action research, and early childhood policy and advocacy directly to her work within the refugee community.
Rebecca earned her Bachelor’s degree in Speech and Hearing Science with a concentration in Speech Language Pathology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2013 before entering the field of early childhood education as a center director and preschool teacher. Rebecca holds a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certification that she earned prior to her time teaching Kindergarten in Thailand.
As a current Buell Fellow in the Buell Early Childhood Leadership Program at the University of Colorado-Denver, Rebecca is able to apply her new learnings around leadership, community based action research, and early childhood policy and advocacy directly to her work within the refugee community.
Rebecca earned her Bachelor’s degree in Speech and Hearing Science with a concentration in Speech Language Pathology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2013 before entering the field of early childhood education as a center director and preschool teacher. Rebecca holds a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certification that she earned prior to her time teaching Kindergarten in Thailand.