Andrea Durbin
Andrea Durbin (also known as Andi) has been the Chief Executive Officer of Illinois Collaboration on Youth since 2012. A passionate and life-long advocate for young people, she leads ICOY’s work to children, youth, and their families thrive. She joined ICOY in 2009 as policy and advocacy director.
In 2017, Andi helped to shepherd a long-discussed merger with the Child Care Association of Illinois, which took effect on July 1, 2017. Following the merger, ICOY is now the largest provider voice for services to children, youth, and families across the state. In 2016 and 2017, Andrea fought to ensure that human service providers were paid for the work they did during Illinois’ historic and destructive state budget impasse, forming the Pay Now Illinois coalition to sue then-Governor Bruce Rauner and state agency heads. The lawsuit attracted national attention and was key in ensuring that providers were ultimately paid in full for their work.
In 2019, Andi was recognized with the Social Impact Award from the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice at the University of Chicago. Chicago Business Journal named her a Woman of Influence in 2017. She served as an adjunct faculty member in the graduate School of Public Service at DePaul University from 2019-2022.
Andi’s leadership is especially shown through her ability to promptly respond to the needs of her membership at ICOY. ICOY has provided their membership with many benefits tailored to helping organizations foster an equitable workforce, including joining in a collaborative partnership with The Human Rights Campaign on their All Children All Families (ACAF) initiative. ACAF provides educational resources, training, and technical assistance on LGBTQ+ inclusion for child welfare systems. For the past few years, ICOY partnered with ACAF to advance their LGBTQ+ inclusive services to better serve LGBTQ+ individuals and families.
Andi looks forward to continuing to evolve with the changing human service landscape, by proactively joining forces with new organizations to shape policy and practices in a more systematic and holistic way for the safety and wellbeing of children and families.