Let It Be Us Announces Vanessa Baie as the Director of Child Welfare Services

Let It Be Us announces the promotion of Vanessa Baie, MSW, LCSW, to the position of Director of Child Welfare Services. Vanessa has a BS Degree in Sociology from Benedictine University and an MSW Degree from the Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois Chicago, with a mental health concentration. Vanessa is also a Ph.D. in Clinical Social Work student at the Institute for Clinical Social Work. Vanessa has a passion for children in foster care, especially those with special needs and high trauma history.

Vanessa has worked with Let It Be Us for the past four years as a Director of Foster Care Licensing & Placement Support. She has been instrumental in the development and growth of the Placement Support Program, which offers solutions to match children with families and provide placements based on technology driven innovations. She has been integral in engineering outcomes that provide faster and stronger placements for youth in emergent need and those who are challenging to place, which also reduces strain on child welfare workers, shelters, and congregate care facilities. 

Vanessa takes the lead on the Let It Be Us Foster Care Education Webinar Series which recruits new foster families to work with children of all ages in foster care and works to recruit already licensed families to work with the Let It Be Us Placement Support Program. The Let It Be Us Foster Care Education Webinar Series addresses over 600 individual Illinois families every year and is a successful recruitment engine that serves all Illinois agencies, including the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). 

Vanessa has prior work experience in child welfare at a private agency in Chicago, Illinois, for over eight years as the Assistant Director of Child Welfare, Quality Assurance Coordinator, and as a Foster Care Case Manager and Licensing Representative, as well as a Therapist and Parenting Educator. For over two years, Vanessa has been a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) of Lake County, Illinois, advocating for the best interests of abused and neglected children within the juvenile court system.