Ileen Henderson

Ileen Schwartz-Henderson, MEd, is the National Director of the Bright Space Program for The Bright Horizons Foundation for Children. Bright Spaces are unique play and family spaces that create a safe place for children impacted by trauma to grow and heal. These spaces are in many types of settings including emergency and transitional housing, domestic violence shelters, and prison visiting rooms, Neonatal Intensive Care waiting rooms, food pantries, reunification sites, child protection centers, and any place where children are in crisis. Ileen has had a long career in Early Childhood as a teacher, administrator and trainer, early interventionist, program developer and manager of overall operations in a broad variety of settings. Ileen is the author and owner of the parenting curriculum for at-risk mothers of very young children, My Baby’s First Teacher® The Bright Space program leverages the expertise of the thousands of Bright Horizons employee volunteers across the country to create and sustain Bright Spaces. As the National Director, she provides technical assistance to programs across the country that are interested in creating trauma-informed child and family spaces in their community through the Bright Space program. She develops training for volunteers, staff, and families and helps develop new programs and partnerships to utilize the Bright Space as a portal for services and resources to support children in crisis.