Lea Whitney, M.A.

Lea Whitney, MA is the caregiver and legal co-guardian to her younger sister, Rhiannon, who has Down syndrome. Throughout her career, Lea has pursued work in the developmental disabilities field. She has a master’s degree in Journalism from Columbia College Chicago, with specializations in website design, content management, and HTML. She authored her graduate thesis on “Understanding Why Illinois is Ranked 51st for Providing Funding and Services to Adults with Developmental Disabilities Living in Housing,” based on a 2008 State of the States report. She worked for 10 years in marketing, communications, and IT. Eight of those years were in banking and supervision/regulation at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. While there she managed the internal website and authored articles about disability awareness. Prior to working at the “Fed,” she managed events and promoted awareness of autism at the Autism Society of Illinois in Lombard, IL. She also implemented her site as a permanent job site for the local Glenbard School Transition students and received an award from Glenbard District 87 for her work. Her previous work also included working for a special needs law firm where she supported their digital marketing, outreach, business growth strategies, website and provided best practices for streamlining their technology and communications.

Today she is focused on website accessibility and is passionate about putting accessible practices in place for every technology to ensure it meets the needs of every individual.