If you’re looking for Emily Cartier at CAN Council, start with the baby room.
That’s where she spends hours at a time programming infant simulators, going through every duffel bag to make sure each one holds the right materials and IDs, and tailoring the experience to the teacher and students she’s about to serve. At some schools she’s working with three or more classrooms at once, and every simulator is set up for the student who will carry it.
As a Prevention Education Coordinator, Emily leads Safe Baby, and her week runs on the program’s rhythm. On Wednesday, a new session begins in the classroom with lessons on the cost of raising a child, Adverse Childhood Experiences, and safe sleep. Thursday is day two, covering Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, and Shaken Baby Syndrome. Before she leaves, she collects permission slips from the students taking part in the simulator experience, then heads back to the office to program. On Friday she loads up the simulators, brings them into the school, and walks students through every item in the bag and how to care for their baby over the weekend.
Monday, she’s back to collect them. The simulators get cleaned, the bags get refilled, and Emily builds each teacher a report showing how every student did on pre- and post-tests, lesson notes, and the simulator itself. Tuesday is usually her only day in the office, spent entering data from the schools she’s visited and packing for the next session.
Somewhere in between, she also packs for Expectant Parent Safe Baby, organizes and leads Babysitter Bootcamp, updates program materials, and attends the Child Death Review Board.
Emily grew up in Port Huron, in a family she describes as close. Her parents and siblings have been the people she could rely on through every hard season of her life, and her parents especially shaped who she became.
“Watching how they treat each other, our family, and the people around them taught me what it means to be a genuinely good and compassionate person,” she said. “They created an incredible environment for us to grow up in, where we felt loved, supported, and encouraged to be ourselves.”
She knows how fortunate that makes her.
As a kid, she wanted to be a crime scene investigator. (“Still kind of want to,” she admits.) When she started the Criminal Justice program in college, she learned that path would require a different degree, so she began exploring what else a CJ degree could lead to. That’s how she found child welfare.
But the pull toward it started earlier. When she was younger, a couple of friends leaned on her through some dark times, and she remembers feeling useless in their moments of need. In college, she realized she could become the person who helps a kiddo through the hardest part of their life.
“While I am not doing that work directly, prevention allows me to dream and hope that the work I do today can protect them before anything even happens,” she said.
Emily first came to CAN Council as an intern during her senior year. A few months in, she was working part-time as a Prevention Education Coordinator, and after graduation she moved straight into the role full-time.
“The work we do here and the involvement within the community is what led me here, but the team I get to work with every day is why I stayed,” she said. “I have never been in such a healthy work environment before.”
For Emily, Babysitter Bootcamp is the highlight. The program existed before she arrived, but she refreshed it and updated how the material was presented. CAN Council brought it to Bay City Academy for any interested student in grades 6 through 12, reaching about 75 students over three months. Then Emily planned the summer sessions and took Babysitter Bootcamp into all four counties CAN Council serves, reaching about 80 more young people. Along with the lessons, students earned CPR certification and learned fire safety from local fire departments.
“I am so proud of where our Babysitter Bootcamp program is at right now, and I cannot wait to see what we do next summer,” she said.
Emily says she got into this work by being curious and eager to learn. She never imagined she’d land somewhere like CAN Council, and she calls it one of the most eye-opening and meaningful experiences of her life. Her invitation to the rest of us is a simple one.
“Be curious about why child abuse and neglect happen. Be willing to learn the facts, understand the realities, and find out how we can work together to fight against them. At the end of the day, the kiddos need us.”