Sessy Nyman
(She/Her)
Deputy Director
Sessy Nyman is a seasoned nonprofit executive with 25+ years of experience in government and organizational leadership. She has worked in the field of early care and education, maternal & child health, community and stakeholder engagement and early childhood policy for more than 2 decades. She continues to lift up the needs of young children and working families in her current role as Deputy Director for the Center for Early Learning Funding Equity (CELFE).
Sessy’s responsibilities in CELFE build on her 20+ years working with child care providers, advocates, child care resource and referral agencies and with families across Illinois to move systems-change forward across the state. Sessy was pivotal in the state’s implementation and funding of early childhood collaborations, helped to establish the state’s Early Learning Council (2003), led multi-year advocacy efforts in Illinois that led to significant investments in access and quality expansion, and initiated the formation of the state’s Child Day Care Licensing Task Force. Sessy has presented locally and nationally on issues related to child care access and equity, family, friend and neighbor care and parent choice, mixed delivery systems in ECEC, grassroots organizing and effective advocacy for ECEC, facilities improvements in child care, and many more topics related to early care and education.
Sessy holds her undergraduate degree in Government and International Studies and History from the University of South Carolina and a Master of Science degree in Geosciences from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
Sessy Nyman
Deputy Director
Sessy Nyman is a seasoned nonprofit executive with 25+ years of experience in government and organizational leadership. She has worked in the field of early care and education, maternal & child health, community and stakeholder engagement and early childhood policy for more than 2 decades. She continues to lift up the needs of young children and working families in her current role as Deputy Director for the Center for Early Learning Funding Equity (CELFE).
Sessy’s responsibilities in CELFE build on her 20+ years working with child care providers, advocates, child care resource and referral agencies and with families across Illinois to move systems-change forward across the state. Sessy was pivotal in the state’s implementation and funding of early childhood collaborations, helped to establish the state’s Early Learning Council (2003), led multi-year advocacy efforts in Illinois that led to significant investments in access and quality expansion, and initiated the formation of the state’s Child Day Care Licensing Task Force. Sessy has presented locally and nationally on issues related to child care access and equity, family, friend and neighbor care and parent choice, mixed delivery systems in ECEC, grassroots organizing and effective advocacy for ECEC, facilities improvements in child care, and many more topics related to early care and education.
Sessy holds her undergraduate degree in Government and International Studies and History from the University of South Carolina and a Master of Science degree in Geosciences from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.