Staff and Board

Blyth founded Courageous Parents Network in 2014, 13 years after the death of her daughter and nephew from infantile Tay-Sachs. Building on her career in television production and distance learning, she conceived of CPN as a way to bring the voices and lived experience of parents and clinicians to families actively caring for children with illness. She has worked with leaders in pediatric palliative care—doctors, nurses and nurse practitioners, social workers, patient advocacy groups, palliative and hospice care providers—as well as with families. She serves on the board of National Tay-Sachs and Allied Diseases Association, where she helps oversee NTSAD’s family support services, and in CPN’s liaison role to the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Section on Hospice and Palliative Medicine. In 2021, Blyth received the Presidential Citation for Palliative Care Advocacy from AAHPM.

Blyth received her BA in History from Yale College and a Masters in Education from Harvard University.

Jennifer brings her experience as an educator and development professional to her role in engaging patient and caregiver organizations, industry partners and healthcare clinicians. A bereaved mom, she serves as president of Ben’s Dream: Sanfilippo Research Foundation and has worked with researchers and patient advocacy groups worldwide to fund and advance gene therapies to the clinical trial stage. In addition to co-authoring Supporting Families Considering Participation in a Clinical Trial, she has been recognized with a Boston Celtics Heroes Among Us award, Global Genes RARE Champion of Hope, and Sanofi TORCH Award.

Jennifer received her MEd in middle school education from Lesley University.

Chrissy brings to CPN her experience as a psychologist with expertise in delivering support and intervention to parents and caregivers of children with complex medical needs. She is actively involved in the Society of Pediatric Psychology, Division 54 of the American Psychological Association. In addition to co-authoring the Standards of Psychosocial Care for Parents of Children with Cancer, she has founded a professional group of pediatric psychologists who are committed to supporting parent caregivers through clinical intervention, research, education and outreach. Chrissy also collaborates with colleagues nationally and internationally on efforts to improve the illness experience for children and their families and publishes on these topics.

Chrissy received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from The Ohio State University.

Carol’s passion is the intersection of business and marketing/communications strategy. She has worked in a variety of industries, but for the past 15 years has focused on the nonprofit sector and social enterprise.

As a consultant Carol has advised clients on a wide range of initiatives, from strategic planning to brand identity and architecture to thought leadership. She was introduced to Courageous Parents Network through a colleague and works closely with the team to develop platforms for increasing the organization’s visibility and communicating its unique value. Carol has led CPN market research projects and regularly contributes to the development of content that supports key programmatic initiatives, including CPN downloadable guides and published articles. She is a graduate of The University of Michigan and currently applies her creative energy as an art student, another passion that she has pursued since childhood.

Alison utilizes more than 10 years of marketing and communications experience to support CPN’s programs and fundraising efforts. The organization benefits from her attention to detail and ability to manage numerous tasks at once, as does her family. The mom of two young children, she relates to families’ desire to make good decisions and says, “I understand that parenting is a challenge, even on the best of days.”

Alison received her BS in Environmental Science from Muhlenberg College and her MA in Energy and Environmental Analysis from Boston University.

Claire graduated with a BA in Psychology from Boston College. Claire is interested in understanding the ways in which organizations can make change in society and specifically, the ways in which CPN helps make a difference in the lives of the families it serves. Claire is an active listener and a sympathetic voice who contributes her communication and organizational skills to the work of the CPN team.

Billy has been working in the film and video industry for over thirty years.  He developed his skills as an oral historian at Chelsea High School where he taught film-making to students from around the world. He helped them craft their own personal stories using video as a medium.  Creating personal histories for families and organizations was a natural progression and he has been doing that in the Boston area for the last 15 years with his company Hindsight Media.  His daughter is a cancer survivor and his involvement with palliative care is at a personal as well as a professional level. In 2012, he and Blyth teamed up to help create a video to help families of children with life-threatening illnesses, Parenting a Child with Life-Limiting Illness. So it began and he hasn’t looked back.

Courageous Parents Network’s content management system and site are overseen by developer extraordinaire Zach Brewer. We could not do this without him!